Five Heroes: The King’s War Beginner’s Guide: Tips, Cheats & Strategies to Defeat the Skeleton King

Bandito Studios created quite the challenge when they released Five Heroes: The King’s War for Android and iOS devices. It’s a role-playing game which is set up like a turn-based strategy game. However, there’s a catch to it. During battles, you’ll quickly find out that the turn-based setup is both turn-based and real time strategy at the same time. As of this writing (October 2018), the game only has one main map and a PvP arena to play in. The fun part is that the main map is very re-playable and its strategies apply to the arena too. To add a bit more, Five Heroes: The King’s War uses somewhat “retro-style” graphics which helps those urges for nostalgia! All things considered, it’s a fun game with lots of potential but it does produce questions.

The questions caused by Five Heroes: The King’s War include what to get for heroes, what to upgrade and when, what battle tactics and team setups work best, and what are the better gain tactics? Five Heroes: The King’s War can truly get tricky once you suffer that first defeat. This is what causes the questions! It’s not so fun when you’re suddenly swarmed! Also note a single bad decision can cost you a match. It’s also not so fun while you’re literally stuck in the upgrade screen (not a glitch or bug). Again, note the mention of “quite the challenge”. Bandito Studios meant business when they did that! But don’t worry. The game really is fun to play and our exclusive Five Heroes: The King’s War beginner’s guide that comes with some pretty cool tips and tricks will help reduce or outright remove those questions for you.

1. The Best Team Setup In Five Heroes: The King’s War

Five Heroes: The King’s War is based mostly on gaining gold and whatever other resources you can get. Many games are that way. However, you’ll need a proper team setup to win those various rewards. Once you start playing, you’ll be given a choice of a hero to take for free. In doing yourself a favor, you’ll start with the Paladin. The Paladin can’t heal itself but it does make for a good tank type hero and it can heal others. From there, the natural game play will land you an Archer. This will be your starting team. From there, you have to buy heroes using gold. The following team setup goes from least expensive to most expensive heroes. It’s also based on “bait n pop” tactics.

Once you reach the castle in the main map, the Tavern becomes available so you can buy heroes. However, you’ll have to gain a lot more gold to do that. Five Heroes: The King’s War does have nice and easy gold gaining methods but they’re not as obvious as other games! While you’re playing, you’ll see various NPCs in the game which give you quests. Some of the quests are to buy certain heroes. This is where you can let those quests wait! In doing so, you’ll also end up giving yourself the “bait n pop” tactic during battles. However, the one hero that you should not delay in gaining is the Priest. You will need that one! So at this point, you should have the Paladin, the Archer, and the Priest. Please note you can buy any hero in the Tavern at any time. It’s just a matter of having the gold.

Next in line is the Earth Mage or the Rogue. Get the Earth Mage first. Yes, you do need the Rogue to complete a quest. You might also want the Rogue for a 2 man tank setup. However, the Earth Mage comes in handier in buying it first. It can also slow the enemies which is a huge help in multiple situations. It also has more range compared to the Archer. The next hero up for purchase is the Assassin. It can fight equally well at close and long range. From there, get the Ice Mage. It’s easier to deal with and handier to have compared to the Fire Mage. Again, this is a team build from least to most expensive and to have the “bait n pop” tactic. The idea is to replace the Archer with the Ice Mage. Don’t worry about any spending you did to upgrade heroes. So, your team at this point should be the Paladin, the Priest, the Assassin, the Earth Mage, and the Ice Mage. Now you’re really in business!

The reason you can skip out on the Fire Mage is because you have to wait for the specific situation to happen before its attack effect can work. That might take a long time before it happens! The Fighting Monk might seem like a good idea but its skill effect can put it right in the middle of the enemies. That’s a great way to make it good and dead quickly! The Mighty Dwarf makes for a good tank but it can’t heal others like the Paladin can. It puts too much reliance on the Priest to heal him.

2. The ‘Bait n Pop’ Tactic For Winning More Battles

You’re only going to gain in Five Heroes: The King’s War if you can win most of the time. Do note that it says “most of the time”. Yes, there will be times where a single bad decision can cost you the match. It happens to us all! The idea in this guide is to reduce those situations as much as possible. The bait n pop tactic is how.

The bait n pop tactic in Five Heroes: The King’s War is a waiting game. You might even consider using your Paladin as the bait. It’s the tanker anyway! Basically, wait for your opponents to come to you. Then pop them with your ranged heroes. Use your Paladin to try to block anything getting too close to your ranged heroes. The exception is the Assassin which can take care of itself. You can also use your Paladin to go after various bonuses found in the battlefield during battles. In doing so, you might end up luring melee ranged enemies to it. So if it becomes necessary, have your Priest follow behind the Paladin to help keep him alive. All the while, make sure your ranged heroes are attacking anything and everything they can. Just be careful not to let your Paladin get within range of enemy shooters. In checking the above screenshot, it’s better to wait and let the opponents come to you and not go after the bonuses. In that battle, you’ll notice there’s a skeleton archer there which is still out of range of the ranged heroes. However, the Earth Mage does have more range compared to the skeleton archer. But if it was just skeletons in that battle, the Paladin has a better chance to go after the bonuses.

The other trick with the bait n pop tactic is the battlefield itself. Each match you play is done so on a randomly generated battlefield. Some of the battlefields Five Heroes: The King’s War generates just so happen to have a choke point. This means there’s only 1 way to get within range of your team to attack it. This is where the Earth and Ice Mages shine. The idea is that while the enemies are coming towards you, there’s a good chance one of them will be inside the choke point. It literally blocks the rest of the enemy team from coming at you! The fun part is that the Earth Mage will slow an opponent it doesn’t 1 hit kill. The Ice Mage will dead stop an opponent that it doesn’t 1 hit kill. Either way, that one enemy blocking the only path will take much longer to do anything. This leaves your ranged heroes to shoot at the remaining enemies within their range. At the same time, you have the Paladin which can also block that one path while the Priest stays close enough to heal the Paladin. So, while they’re still busy trying to get within range, your heroes are busy gunning them all down! But in the above screenshot, there’s no choke point. So your better bet is to send your Paladin to the left to help block for the Archer or Ice Mage (whichever you have).

Another switch to this is to use the Summoner (if you managed to get him) to send out “sacrificial biscuits” for your opponents to go after while your ranged heroes pop the enemies. The downside is that you won’t have your Paladin there (Summoner replaces the Paladin). In doing so, you’ll have one less healer. But if you didn’t end up needing a second healer, then it’s all good! You could also use the Summoner to replace the Priest so you can still have your tank. Again, the Paladin can’t heal itself.

3. Upgrading Tactics And Timing For More Wins

Five Heroes: The King’s War is definitely a case of “the quick and the sad”. Upgrading is where you reduce or remove the sad part for your team! Even though the game is setup as a turn-based strategy during battles, the timers on each character in the battle can cause multiple moves at the same time. It’s a matter of who taps first. Now it’s a matter of what upgrades to get for your team members? This does depend on which of your heroes managed to level.

While in the Barracks of the castle in Five Heroes: The King’s War, you have the chance to upgrade various parts of each of your heroes. In the above screenshot, you’ll see only some heroes have upgrade options depending on which ones leveled before entering the Barracks. The trick to upgrading is to NOT do it unless you’re about to exit the game for a while. Once you start an upgrade, you will be stuck there until that upgrade(s) is/are complete (NOT a bug). As it turns out, you should log out every once in a while and this would be a good time to do so! Besides, the mobs don’t respawn that quickly! Also note that you can perform multiple upgrades on each hero at the same time. So your best bet is to get in as many upgrades as you can each time. The more upgrades you do at one time, the more it will eventually cost in time and gold to complete. This also depends on how long you were able to stay in game playing to gain the resources and EXP.

Each upgrade on each hero requires a certain number of skill points gained via leveling. Those requirements will increase with each upgrade you do. Again, refer to “the quick and the sad” mention. So yes, it’s the ability cool downs (CDs) you want to upgrade more than others first. This is based on which abilities of each hero you’re using the most. Consider the team in the above screenshot. For the Paladin, you’d want its attack speed CD reduction upgraded first. Then its attack damage and/or healing skill increases, movement CD reduction, and finally it’s movement range upgrades. If you upgraded other options first, there’s a good chance your Paladin is going to be too slow to be of any real help to your team.

Now look at the Priest. You’d want its healing ability CD reduction upgraded first. Then its healing ability increase. From there, movement speed and range upgrades are the better bet. The Priest’s luck upgrade is done at your leisure but helps. For the Archer, in this order, the better bet for upgrades are the attack speed CD reduction, range increase, damage increase, luck, and then the movement upgrades. For the Eath and Ice Mages and the Assasin, it would be the same idea as the Archer. As for the Rogue, it’s the same ideas as the Paladin but without the healing skill. By now you should already get the idea for the Summoner!

4. The Best Strategies For Gaining Gold, EXP And Resources

None of the above is going to work out well in Five Heroes: The King’s War if you can’t pay for it. Don’t get the wrong idea here. This is NOT based on a “pay to win” setup. It’s a matter of making good choices and not spending recklessly or needlessly. Some of your best gains are simply by not spending and there is a way. But eventually, you will have to spend gold. Luckily, it’s not so hard to gain gold! It just wasn’t as obvious to gain it like in other games. If you chose to spend real money, please remember that it’s always done by your choice.

In the above screenshot is part of the main map of Five Heroes: The King’s War. Spread throughout the main map is various chests which contain various rewards. All you have to do is defeat the enemy mobs which are guarding those chests. The bait n pop tactic certainly helps. Unfortunately, you’ll eventually get hit or your heroes will get killed anyway no matter what you do. So what’s the typical first idea? That would be to go get healing potions (pots) or use the potions found in the Inn. Unfortunately, these cost. The pots found in the Inn should always be used as a last resort and mostly for revivals because they have a 15 minute cool down. The pots you can buy from the Merchant should be kept at a minimal use. Those pots are inexpensive if you used the trick.

The trick here is to note that there are very easy mobs near to the castle. Always save those mobs until you need them. The other idea to use is to attack mobs which are already very easy for you to defeat. Meaning you either barely get hit or won’t get hit. Either mob idea works. When you do this using the initial setup with the Paladin, 3 ranged heroes, and the Priest, you have a double healer team. Any of your heroes that are not dead can be completely healed for free. Healing won’t happen over time. But in not using any pots as much as possible, you gain the chest rewards and didn’t have to spend anything!

Take a look at the Paladin in the above screenshot. Notice its HP is not full. This will mean your power rating (85 vs. 52) won’t be at its maximum amount. But don’t let that stop you. Use the bait n pop tactic to win first. Heal up as much as you can during the match. Once you win, collect the chest(s) those mobs were guarding and your gains just keep coming. However, you’ll notice that even with a power rating gap as showing in the above screenshot, you will get hit. A single bad choice will leave you with a dead hero or more. Hey, Five Heroes: The King’s War isn’t a 100% giveaway! The idea is to go after stronger opponents that you can defeat first. The hard part is trying to keep all heroes alive. If you can do that, you can heal up for free by attacking the weaker mobs. The better part to all this is that you can gain HP pots and even diamonds from any of those chest rewards (it’s random).

Take a look at the very first screenshot of the Tavern. Notice the diamonds and the gold amount showing there? That didn’t just magically appear! It’s in spending the most on buying heroes, upgrades, and not using revive pots you’ll end up gaining well. The mobs found around the main map of Five Heroes: The King’s War re-spawn. Along with those mobs, the chests re-spawn too along with their rewards. It may seem “small and cheesy” but it works! The part to point out is that while your team keeps getting stronger, those re-spawning mobs don’t. Currently there’s only 1 map in Five Heroes: The King’s War and more are on the way. But that one make made it fairly easy to build up a strong team!

And this ends our strategy guide for Five Heroes: The King’s War. We hope you’ve enjoyed our tips and tricks and if you know additional hints or just want to share your thoughts about the game, don’t hesitate to drop us a line in the comment section!