A beginners guide to Hero Siege

If you’re reading this guide, you’re most likely new to Hero Siege and wish to know everything there is about the game before you begin your epic journey - but on the other hand, you could also be a veteran player who simply wish to refresh your memory - and that’s fine too. This guide is for beginners and veterans alike, as it’s designed to be both detailed and as easy to understand as possible.

Without further notice, let’s get started!

=Introduction to Hero Siege 3.0=

If you’re coming back from a long break, or if this is the first time you’re playing Hero Siege, it’s important to know that the 3.0 update is a total rewrite of the game, with features that did not exist in older versions. While you’re getting more and more familiar with the game, you might need to ask a question or two about the game, and although you could simply Google it - it’s not recommended.

=What is Hero Siege all about?=

Hero Siege is a pixel ARPG and compared to other similar titles on the market, it’s truly one of it’s kind. The main goal of your gameplay is about leveling up your class to the max level (which is 100) and obtain gear, which you can later on upgrade to do wormholes (which is the end game) - but we’re gonna cover that in a bit, so don’t worry if it sounds confusing.

How is Hero Siege different from other similar titles?


 * It is not built around roguelike elements. There is two roguelike element in the game - relics - but these are optional for gameplay.


 * The game is being developed by the studio Panic Art Studios (PAS for short), and the game has 2 main developers, Elias and Jussi, as well as other staff, all active on the community discord.


 * It’s cheap - actually much cheaper than other similar titles which goes for over 20 euros each. Hero Siege only costs 6.99 euros, and it often goes on a 75-90% sale on Steam.
 * It has an active economy where you can trade with other people.


 * It has no pay-to-win aspect. Everything that is needed to reach end-game can be farmed.

In other words, Hero Siege is like a mix between Diablo, Path of Exile and Bindings of Isaac.

=Roguelike Elements =

Hero Siege does not have many roguelike elements to it, in fact it only has two - relics. This means that you do not lose your character or progress when you die (unless you’re playing in Hardcore mode).

Relics
Relics are items that can be found randomly in the world, dropped from chests, bosses or crafted in town. You lose all of your relics when you die.

Upon collecting a relic, depending on what kind of relic it is, it’s stored in your relic inventory - which holds a maximum of 32 relics. The more relics you have, the less relics you’ll find - and once you’ve hit the limit, you will no longer find relics, and rewards that previously would be relics will now be gold instead.

There are 4 types of relics in the game:

Active/Usable Relics: You can only have one of these relics active at a time, and they’ll appear under your health bar next to the potion button in the HUD. When you press the key bound to usable relics, the relic will do something special.

Orbitable Relics: These relics orbits around the player at all times, either to do damage to nearby enemies or block incoming damage.

Stat Relics: Stat relics will simply give you some extra bonus stats.

On hit/On attack Relics: These relics are often called proc relics, and they do something special whenever you attack or hit an enemy with an attack.

It can be a bit difficult to farm relics as they spawn randomly and have no set spawn location.

= Leveling from 1-100=

Leveling in Hero Siege can be both a pain and a pleasure at the same time, depending on how you look at it. Compared to previous versions of the game, leveling has actually been improved a lot and no longer requires you to endlessly grind to reach level 100.

When you first start the game, you’ll be placed in the tutorial zone. Read the signs that you find here and kill all the mobs, this will bring you a level or two. When you enter the portal to town, talk to all of the NPCs in town to see if they can give you a few quests.

Going to the zone 1 of act 1 for the first time all you have to do is find the other portal to the next zone, optionally the waypoint as well. To be able to teleport to any zone in Hero Siege, you must first find and activate the waypoint in each zone.

The easiest way to level after that is to just play the game from normal mode to nightmare mode, doing all the levels and beating each difficulty, which means that you have to beat the final boss of act 6, which is Satan, in order to progress into nightmare. You can change difficulty when creating your game, or by using the switch at the zone selector in the town if you’re playing in Local. It’s important not to fight enemies that are more than, or less than 20 levels than you, as you will not gain any experience from them. You should always try to stay within a reasonable level difference of around 5-10 levels, as that grants you the most optimal amount of experience - otherwise you’ll actually end up with less overall experience.

=Hero Levels=

Hero Levels are like Paragon in Diablo 3. When you’ve hit level 100, all further experience that you get will be added into your hero levels. The experience needed for each level increases for every level you gain. Every 10 Hero levels you gain unlocks a new tier of abilities, where you can chose one out of three options.

Unlocking Nightmare and Hell
Unlocking new difficulties in the game can be done by killing the final boss of Act 6 (Satan). To unlock Nightmare, that is all you have to do, kill Satan in Normal Difficulty. To unlock Hell difficulty, you need to kill All Act bosses before killing Satan. It’s important to note that although there are 7 acts in the game, act 7 is a DLC and is not needed to advance in the game.

What if you get stuck?
If you get stuck while leveling, it’s as easy as going back a few levels and killing enemies of lower levels until you get better gear or get a few more level points to put into your skills. It can be frustrating at times, but it all depends on the class you play as all classes have their own weaknesses and strengths. =What to do after hitting level 100=

Good job on hitting that sweet level 100! This is where the real game starts. By now you’ve hopefully unlocked the Hell difficulty and you’re ready to begin farming for Satanics. These items appear with a red name and a red glowing aura around them when they drop on the map, and appear as a red star on your map. These are items with fixed stats that you will use to grind in the end game.

The most important thing to do before attempting to really begin that satanic grind, is getting your mining to 500 and eventually maxing it out. This is because drop rates are not a certain thing and you can sometimes go many hero levels without a single drop, and mining in Hell difficulty will provide you with ruby and jade ore which you either can trade or craft satanics and runes with.

Basically, these are the things you will do after hitting 100:


 * Max out your mining.


 * Get a Satanic piece of gear in every slot.


 * Upgrade your satanics to level 10.


 * Use re-roll tokens and satanic dice to improve the quality (%) of your gear.

=Understanding Satanics=

For a full list of all satanics in the game, click here.

Satanics always have fixed stats. This means that end-game builds will use specific satanics that benefit their playstyle, and satanics actually don’t all share the same drop location or drop chance either.

Drop Chances
All satanics in the game are divided into different drop tiers, meaning that some are more common than others.

Drop Locations
Satanics can drop anywhere in the game, with the exceptions being event boss items, and boss sets. New with Season 14 is the addition of Chase Items, which can only drop in certain parts of tarethiel.

Quality in Percentage (Quality %)
The quality listed on a Satanic determines how low/high the stats will be; the higher the quality, the higher the stats. The lowest you can go is 50% when an item is bricked using a satanic dice; an action that is irreversible. The lowest quality you can actually drop however, is 60%, and the highest is 110% (Pristine+). 100% quality items are often referred to as Pristine. The quality of an item can be changed by using a Re-roll Token.

Item Level
The item level on satanics is always fixed and can not be modified and is only for visual purposes, they don’t actually do anything on satanics.

Satanic Levels
Not to be confused with the item level, satanic levels go from 1 to 10. Every satanic drops at level 1/10, and you can increase the level with Upgrade Tokens, which can be crafted with specific ore found in the world, or with rubies. Each level increases the base value of every stat, meaning that level 10 items will be x2.5 stronger than level 1 items, regardless of quality.

=Farming Satanics=

There are a few ways to farm satanics, but there’s one factor they all have in common; mob density and clear speed.

Magic Find VS Clear Speed
Magic Find Increases the chance of finding good satanics, and clear speed makes you have more chances at finding satanics, so you want to balance the two to a point where you can effectively farm while having high Magic Find.

Farming in Nightmare
Before venturing into Hell, especially on Hardcore, It is a good idea to farm some low tier satanics, as well as mythics, in Nightmare. Only C tier Satanics can drop in Nightmare.

Farming in Hell
Welcome to the beginning of the end game. As you're starting out in hell, a good way to get your first Satanics is to mine ruby ore and either craft random/specific satanics, or sell the ore for rubies to buy the pieces you need.

There are multiple ways to farm for Satanics and Chase items:


 * Boss dungeons
 * Specific or all Acts
 * Chaos Towers (often referred to as CT)
 * Key Dungeons

A combination of these is usually the best way to get started.

=Talents=

Talents are what abilities are called in this game, whether it be an active talent which you can press on your action bar, or a passive talent that is always active, or a proc talent that has a chance to activate when you do a certain thing. The deciding factor for the damage of your talents is the element it has been assigned with.

In this picture, we can see what the element it has by looking at the text in the middle right of it, surrounded by brackets. In this talent, the damage is increased by Cold. This means that the cold element is what gives it more damage, but you also need to understand that the number of points affects how much it scales. A talent with 20 base points spent will be gaining 100% of the elemental value, while a talent with 10 base points will be gaining around 50% of it - meaning that for each base point spent into an ability, the more damage from the element it’s going to get.

We can also see the synergy of the talent at the bottom left of the image. Most of the time you’re going to see either Energy, Strength or Stamina in that place. But some talents also have a second parameter: Weapon Damage. These synergies scale off of these primary attributes, giving you a small percentage of them as bonus damage to the skill.

Active Talents
These are the talents you can activate and that have a cooldown, located in your action bar at the bottom left of your screen, as seen below.

Every active talent in the game share a global cooldown of 0.5 seconds, meaning that you can’t spam all talents at the same time, and that their cooldown can never go below 0.5s regardless of how much Cooldown Reduction you stack.

Passives/Auras
These are the talents that provide you with a constant buff, and auras also provide your teammates with the same buff as long as they are within its range.

Procs
These are the talents that have a small chance to activate when you do a certain task. For example, reading the description of a talent can tell you it has a chance to proc when attacking, this means that it as X% chance to activate when you hold down the attack button. For these kind of talents, attack speed is what usually makes them proc more, and thus make them better.

=Primary Stats=

The primary stats in the game are:


 * Energy: Increases your max mana pool.
 * Strength: Increases your base attack damage.
 * Stamina: Increases your max health.
 * Armor: Increases your Damage Reduction

=Elemental Damage=

Elemental Damage is what boosts all of your damage output in the game, specific or generic. There are currently 7 elements you can use: Wind, Cold, Fire, Poison, Lightning, Physical, Magic, Elemental.


 * Physical Damage increases the damage of your physical based attacks and abilities.
 * Magic Damage increases the damage of your magic based attacks and abilities.
 * Wind Damage increases the damage of your Wind based attacks and abilities.
 * Cold Damage increases the damage of your cold based attacks and abilities.
 * Fire Damage increases the damage of your fire based attacks and abilities.
 * Poison Damage increases the damage of your poison based attacks and abilities.
 * Lightning Damage increases the damage of your lightning based attacks and abilities.
 * Elemental Damage increases damage done by all elements (Including Physical).

=Equipment= Equipment is how you become stronger. You find them by killing enemies in the game, by crafting them and by trading them with other people.

There are 8 equipment slots you can use in the game:


 * Amulet
 * Helmet
 * Weapon
 * Chest
 * Shield
 * Gloves
 * Boots
 * Charm
 * Rings
 * Belts
 * Potions

There are also 9 (8 if you don’t count set items as their own quality/tier) item qualities, or tiers, in the game, listed from the most common to the least common:


 * Common
 * Superior
 * Rare
 * Legendary
 * Mythic
 * Runeword
 * Satanic
 * Set Items
 * Chase
 * Angelic

All items up to Legendary quality have random stats when they drop. It is impossible to farm for a specific Mythic or Legendary to help you reach higher difficulties. You’ll have to rely on pure luck of getting the stats you need, and the amount each stat provides increases with each quality.

Angelics
Angelic items are the rarest items in the game, but their power fluctuates a lot. Some of them are better than any satanic, while some other angelics are worse than most satanics.

Runewords
Runewords varies in power depending on which runes are used. They are crafted by inserting specific runes into a common item. More on runewords can be found in Runewords

=Crafting, Sockets, Runes and Gems= You can craft by going to the NPC Torstein Néel in any town.

Crafting is another way of obtaining gear in the game. By getting legendary or mythic drops, you can sell those for dust, which you can use to craft more legendaries and mythics. The same can be done with rares, which you purchase with gold - and legendaries can also be crafted with gold, although it’s a lot for a new player.

Sockets
Sockets can hold gems and runes, which will increase a specific stat or element. Almost every item has sockets, and can also be found on non-satanics. The amount of sockets on most satanics are random, while Chase and boss items/sets have a fixed amount

Gems
Gems can be found in levels randomly, and at the blacksmith you can combine smaller gems into more powerful, larger gems. They will boost a certain element of yours by a flat amount.

Runes
Runes can be found randomly in levels or traded from other players. They will boost a specific stat by a percentage, and also by smaller amounts depending on the stat. Depending on the build, runes can have a huge impact, but also no impact at all. It’s up to you how you wish to build your class.

= Removing Gems and Runes=

You can remove socketed gems and runes by going to the blacksmith and choose to sell your items. There will be an option to remove all runes, but this will delete them from your item and you will not get them back.

= Mining=

For a detailed guide about mining, click here.

=Trading=

Most Trading is done in the in-game market, where the trades are listed in Rubies.

You can trade with other people in the game outside the market by holding TAB and right clicking the player and choosing “Trade”. When trading, it’s extremely important to pay attention to what’s happening on your screen. Some shady people will try to give you gold instead of rubies when trading, and players don’t usually notice this until it’s too late. It’s also important to make sure you’re not being given a bricked item (a 50% quality item), as those are ruined and you can never improve it further.

Each player has to accept the trade twice after putting their items in. Afterwards it’s also a good idea to vote reset to make sure the server saves the transaction, or you risk losing your items.

Currency
There are currently two main currencies in the game:


 * Rubies
 * Jade Ore

Rubies: Can be dropped from enemies, bosses and found in the world in chests. This is the primary currency and is used to trade for gear from other players.

Jade Ore: This is a new currency that some people use to trade with instead. Jade ore is used to craft specific items to upgrade your items further. It can be found in Ruby Veins with a slight chance.

=Seasons=

Just like in most other ARPGs, Hero Siege has seasons. This means that during a season, you can choose to create a seasonal character, you get the chance to compete with other seasonal players on the leaderboard.

A season usually lasts 3 months, and when a new season starts your old seasonal characters will be converted into non-seasonal characters and you’ll have to begin from scratch again.

It’s also important to note that seasonal can only play with other seasonal players, which also applies to softcore, hardcore and non-seasonal players. Hardcore players can not play with softcore players, and so on.

Reaching the top 35 of the leaderboards of a season will award you with unique cosmetics.

= What is the End-Game like? =

The end-game in Hero Siege is to min-max your items until they can’t get any better; by upgrading them to level 10 and 115% quality, which is a lengty process. After that you’ll need to do Wormholes so you can get a seasonal leaderboard placement for your class.

Wormholes
A wormhole can only be opened in Hell difficulty, by going to the NPC in the top left corner of Town of Inoya.

When opening a wormhole for the first time, it will be a level 1 wormhole, which means that the mob level will be around 140. Every additional wormhole level increases the mob level slightly. The point of a wormhole is to kill all enemies before the timer (the blue bar at the top of the screen) runs out.

At the end of a wormhole, you’ll be summoning a powerful boss (which includes bosses that are harder and unique to wormholes) that you have to kill. When the boss is killed, and if you killed all enemies before the timer ran out, a red button will appear. Clicking this button will advance your wormhole progression by +1 level, however, if you don’t complete it in time no button will spawn and it will all be for nothing.

Leaderboards (Seasonal Characters only)
When you complete a wormhole, that wormhole level will be added to the leaderboard for the class you were playing at the time. If you completed wormhole 3, this will be visible on the leaderboard for your class and you’ll be given a rank depending on how many others have completed higher levels than you. Your wormhole level is unique to your character, so if you create a new class or a new character but with the same class again, your wormhole level will be 1.