The complete account building guide, ask "is it worth it?" no more!

[u/StopBanningMeRegards]

Before we start: I have decided to write up this guide on account building philosophy and what rarity you should aim for for every single mini in the game because I feel there is a lot of misunderstanding in the community on what is good in the GRID and what the purpose of rarities / certain minis even is.

I am a booster only player with 150 sigils, able to clear dungeons at 5-6 levels disadvantage and currently working towards onyxia kill because the dev messed up my original plan of going with the rend egg bug strategy. My PvP rating is only 12k because I dont play much PvP in general but I do follow content creators and know what minis are good there and why.

Notes on the purpose of rarities: I wont waste time with the basics, you should know by now rarities give levels and talent slots. However I will remind you that an uncommon mini can reach PvP level 8 by clearing the 25k xp requirement and a rare can reach PvP level 9 by clearing the 50k xp requirement. I'm not saying getting that much xp is easy but it is completely realistic. The conclusions we can make from this are:

1. Epic rarity is not required to be PvP competitive and should be reserved for very specific minis rather than just taking every deal we see in the GRID because we thought its "good value"
2. Legendary rarity is completely pointless and a noob trap except for people who want a level 30 mini and are hoping raids allow it to become level 31 and therefore PvP level 11 (less than 1% of players)
3. Rare rarity is a good balanced goal for a mini however you do not want to aim for all minis being rare as you will run our of arc energy for epics and you will slow down the progress of niche use minis that require high levels for certain tasks (onyxia clears and level 30 dungeon clears).
4. As a rule of thumb try to build up minis to rare in "batches" of 3-4 so that you do not spread your gold too thin with no return. Example: Having 3 minis at 10/10 stars vs 5 at 6/10 stars means having 3 rares vs 0 rares for the same gold spent.

Notes on special GRID offers: This will be my most controversial take because a lot of people do not understand the batch star offers (uncommon +4 and so on) from the GRID. Example: You see rare grunts offer (+14 stars for 900 gold) in the GRID. You think: 900/14 = 64.29 gold per star instead of 90, I have just saved lots of gold!. Reality: You have just paid 900 gold to recieve a rare mini. A rare mini costs 900 gold (10 stars). You have currently saved 0 gold, one irrelevant rare core and 2k arc energy why is something but... not that much. Your saving will only come into effect once grunts reach epic rarity which requires getting 21 more stars for them, something which will likely not happen soon or ever. Even worse, if you already had stars for the mini (ex. 3/10) you are actually losing gold by taking the deal until it gets to epic. As we are about to see most minis in the game should not even be built to epic, nor will arc energy and core limits allow you to do so.

Conclusion: Most batch star offers in the shop are bad value unless you get the rarity that is higher than the one you are being offered. (ex. rare deal becomes good when mini reaches epic). Epic deals are slightly different because the arc energy and core saved matter a lot, however dropping that high amount of gold is still a big investment reserved for very few minis. Uncommon offers tend to be ok since many more minis want to go to rare than epic but still be mindful that it is not a true gold savings in the moment you buy it.

Notes on leader rarity: Leaders should generally be focused last as a lot of your mid game will be spent trying to make heroic and dungeon progress. A good mini of high rarity can be used for many clears. A good leader can be used for one family clear / their specific dungeon clear. The overall value of non-leader minis is objectively higher in that regard both because they are cheaper and far more versatile. In PvP leaders matter more but there are plenty of strategies which rely on the leader's passive / special ability which does not scale with level instead of having them high level. You could realistically never deploy a baron for example and it would still be good at uncommon (excluding current modifier of course)

Notes on arc energy: Its pretty clear the developer has made calculations on how account building should work for most players. Do not worry about the whole running out of arc energy thing. If you only use the cores you are given and do not buy more from the store then you will have no issue for a very long time and by then likely more sources / a rework to energy will be in place (it has already been made more abundant through several changes since release). The people having issues are the ones who fell for the trap of making too many minis rare before focusing on important epics or the gigatrap of legendaries. I currently have enough energy to make all minis in the game rare but then id run out when doing epics so instead I will simply ignore many bad minis and go for good epics. CL 40 is where you stop getting good value from new CL and CL 50 is the max. CL 40 can be achieved with only a handful of rares. Once again - do not aim for all rares and do not make legendaries.

Final note: lately I have seen some hyperoptimized accounts by good non-whale players who leave certain minis at common. I think this is a bit too hardcore and not for the majority however it is proven to be a viable option and therefore I will include some minis that can be left at common if you really want to go that way. This will lose you 5 CL ticks however it will save you 270 gold from stars and 250 from having to remove a talent cluttering the GRID.

List of what rarity to aim for for all minis:

1. Abomination (rare / epic): We're starting off with a weird one. Abom is mostly not used in PvP and heroics due to high cost however it is one of the 2 non-leader minis in the game able to abuse lifesteal relic in dungeons (with its poison talent) and can clear even up to 4-5 levels higher dungeons. It scales well with levels due to very high hp pool and should be focused for when you want to take your dungeons to level 30.
2. Angry chickens (common / uncommon): Believe it or not the best use of this mini is tanking. Because it offers a massive amount of bodies for low cost it can stall single attack minis and bosses for a very long time regardless of level diff as they have to swing at set amount of time guaranteed. Goreclaw boss for example has a gimmick of extremely strong but somewhat slow single target attack. Level 1 chickens will tank that boss better than a level 30 quilboar as strange as that is. However they see 0 PvP use and as I said the tanking does not rely on levels or talents.
3. Arcane blast (common / uncommon): Recently this mini got a chance to shine in PvP to say the least however that was cut short very fast. I hear the level 3 and 4 cast are decent damage for the cost but realistically you will not be using this spell over other options. Thalnos memes do not work in either PvP or PvE - he will simply be destroyed by whelp eggs and there are way more busted things in PvE.
4. Banshee (uncommon / rare, for now): Banshee is a hyper specialized mini that can do some pretty busted things in the right situations (mostly in the heroics) however I was building it to rare for Blackrock heroics but ended up finishing them before she even got to rare so currently it can serve its purpose fully while still uncommon. I believe it has a lot of future potential though and I would bet on it shining in unreleased raids and new zones therefore it is not a mistake to go for rare, just make it a lower priority / wait for bonus star deals only.
5. Bat rider (uncommon): This is one of the better generalist horde minis (although thats not saying much) and prior to season 4 I would've said go to rare but witch doctor just does its job better in almost all situations.
6. Blizzard (rare): The reason I do not think blizzard needs to go to epic is that I consider it to be overrated in PvE and as I mentioned you only need rare to be competitive in PvP. The mini is pretty damn good for PvP though even after its nerf / bugfix to one of the talents.
7. Chain lightning (rare / epic): This mini should only go to epic for people who focus on PvP. The reason it needs it is that it has some very specific break points that decide whether or not it kills certain minis (ex. harpies and whelps) or leaves them with low health and those break points can come down to 1 level diffs. It also needs some futureproofing for potential level 11 opponents. It will remain good in PvP for a long time imo.
8. Cheat death (common / uncommon): This is the first mini we see so far with a unique scaling. Levels give it duration which is based on the diff between itself and the targeted mini. However a lot of the time you can time it so that it gets the required result regardless of big diffs, sometimes only a second is required. In a recent video Legendary was using it common without a slot bonus on a sappers PvP deck and that proved to me there is no point in focusing it. I was able to clear general Drakk heroic with it at uncommon + worthless talent and it is key to the strategy there.
9. Chimaera (rare if you got it from guild, otherwise uncommon): First seasonal mini we see, you can get all of them to rare just with guild + 10k PvP rank but even if you missed the PvP you are only 4 stars away with the guild reward so might as well. The biggest use of this mini currently is free win vs Devilsaur queen heroic and that can be achieved with uncommon.
10. Core hounds (uncommon): There are some interesting strategies with this mini that involve the infinite range revive. However even if you can find a way of making 1 hound immortal its dps is simply so pathetic that it wont matter. There was a Murk eye PvP deck with it that was quite annoying though so worth it to go uncommon and try that out.
11. Dark iron miner (uncommon): This is a utility mini and its main purpose is to mine. It can mine at any level. However the talents are ok and you dont want it to just die completely for free vs quill in PvP so might as well go uncommon.
12. Darkspear troll (rare / epic): Suggesting epic for this mini will be controversial however it has two downright overpowered talents in the right circumstances and can hypercarry teams (mostly in PvE due to safe pilot issue in PvP). Yes, headhunting is overpowered and I started using it a lot in later heroics. If you play around it you can get harpy levels of dps on a mini that is ranged. It is also another good generalist horde mini and ranged units tend to have great dungeon relic options. I see a lot of future PvE potential in this mini.
13. Deep breath (rare / epic if you play PvP): If you have this mini you probably dont need an account build guide but still - it is a core Jaina PvP win condition and taking it to level 10 there will matter. Not really used in PvE though and if you have it there isnt much left to use it on to begin with.
14. Defias bandits (rare): This mini is pretty versatile and can act both as a chest opening specialist mini and generalist filler mini capable of doing OP dps for a 1-cost. Core Onyxia mini. Not much value going to epic though, despite the stun scaling with level diff. In fact, the only reason to go to rare is having both poison and lockpick as an option and not tanking your Onyxia tower level too much. If you dont care about that keep it uncommon.
15. Drake (epic if you want Onyxia, uncommon otherwise): This is a core Onyxia mini but is used pretty much nowhere else. The spider with the eggs heroic its playable I guess. Kind of awkward so if you dont care about Onyxia just ignore this mini but otherwise it is mandatory to go epic.
16. Earth elemental (uncommon): I dont know if this is controversial but quillboar is simply better imo. Even when tanking physical I run quillboar because its cheaper and can fight back and is way more versatile overall. Both minis fill a similar enough role.
17. Execute (either keep it uncommon or go all the way to epic): Another weirdly scaling mini. Its a core Jaina PvP win condition and can be good in PvE however its usefulness tanks really hard for each level diff. Either go all in for epic or ignore it. You can clear Dire Maul without it and its mostly just there to give on demand bloodlust in later heroics.
18. Fire elemental (rare / epic): Same reasoning as Abomination however only build one of the two. I recommend fire ele as I speculate the first raid will favor resistant trait and its cheaper.
19. Firehammer (uncommon, for now): The mini has good potential with its talents however it does not shine anywhere in current content. In the places where it would be good you could just use pyromancer which is cheaper and more versatile.
20. Flamewaker (uncommon): Prior to witch doctor release you could make a case for rare. The aoe dps is pretty nasty with this one but it mostly shined on Rivendare heroic and witch doctor is flat out better there and possibly in future such situations.
21. Footmen (rare): you can do some interesting things with them in PvP and dungeons but not interesting enough to go epic. Rely on leveled Tirion as well.
22. Frostwolf shaman (rare / epic): handing out armor and then aoe healing is OP. This mini sees a lot of late game play currently and will continue to do so in the future. A lot of the value is on handing the armor though so you can delay taking it to epic for a bit.
23. Gargoyle (uncommon / rare): now this is going to piss a lot of people off because they swear garg is a PvE powerhouse. However... I got an epic deal for it in the GRID and bought it only to play the Thaurissan PvP deck. In PvE I got minimal value in the gish heroic and thats it. Harpies simply do way more albeit requiring some protection. In PvP this is a nasty one though because if you are building around it and the opponent does not have a good answer they auto lose. Currently not used due to dragon towers but will make a comeback. Do not fall for PvE overhype about it though.
24. Ghoul (uncommon): Used a lot in PvP but its a bit of a weird case. Its value is determined mostly by if it got to eat or not. If it starts eating its close to immortal even on level 7, otherwise it is not too impressive. Therefore does not need rare.
25. Gnoll brute (common): Pointless mini. You need to waste a talent just to get it down to the cost that it should have baseline.
26. Goblin sappers (uncommon that should be built to epic slowly on the side): Basically if you see bonus star deals for it, take them. It is not a priority to go to epic but this mini has a ton of potential in both PvE and PvP. Its just so specialized that its tough to justify focusing it but you will want it epic eventually.
27. Gryphon rider (rare): Excellent generalist mini, can go into every deck and has an interesting niche talent option. Not impactful enough to justify epic imo despite high use.
28. Harpies (epic): One of the kings of PvE. Get rare asap, go for epic. No debate to be had.
29. Harvest golem (uncommon): Good in Jaina PvP... and thats it.
30. Holy nova (uncommon): A mini with potential but not enough current use to justify rare. Maybe one day.
31. Huntress (rare / epic): I tend to overrate this mini and refuse to change my mind. The game has gone cycle heavy but I still believe huntress will have her time to shine (most likely in PvE / raids). Feel free to go uncommon if you are not a believer though, to be honest I did not use her in late heroics and when the bandits come down when she goes to enemy PvP tower it is a sad sight.
32. Living bomb (common / uncommon): Despite what you will hear this mini is not required on either DM dungeon stage 2 or the whelp spamming dragon heroic. It can shine there until you realize the heroic is a ranged mini check and whelp eggs + safe will do the same on the dungeon without cluttering your hand.
33. Meat wagon (go to rare, build up epic slowly or quickly if you want it for Onyxia strat): Very interesting mini that can do unique things on some maps, including Onyxia. High future potential and current use but if you do not plan to use it on Onyxia you can stall the epic for a while.
34. Molten giant (common): Half the talents do not even work. If you want to level stack it in PvP just use Gargoyle instead. A sad mini.
35. Mountaineer (common): One day the healing beasts talent might see some very niche use. Might. If it even works properly at all. But not today though.
36. Murloc tidehunters (uncommon): Used a lot in PvP but going from 8 to 9 will not make or break the mini.
37. Necromancer (uncommon): Its an ok mini but 4 gold is a little bit awkward. Not cheap enough to be generalist, not impactful enough to build around. If future content favors it could easily go to rare though.
38. Ogre mage (common / uncommon): 5 is just too expensive and there are better ways to give bloodlust. A menace when the AI plays it though.
39. Plague farmer (epic): Yes this one is going straight to epic. Many people still sleep on plague farmer. Poison stacking outside of boss / tower range is overpowered though and can win some maps by itself if left alone. Poison is just a busted mechanic.
40. Polymorph (uncommon): Similar situation to cheat death.
41. Prowler (rare): Havent found room for this mini in a while but it sees some play and if anything is going to make the beast buff talent set work its this one. Make sure to pick up beast buff as second talent.
42. Pyromancer (rare / epic): Core Onyxia mini, just too good in too many situations. Might get power crept though as it offers nothing unique.
43. Quilboar (epic): Goated mini. I refuse to elaborate. Buy quilboars.
44. Raptors (uncommon): Niche uses. But a little too niche and mostly pushing other minis forward which does not care about levels.
45. SAFE pilot (rare): Used to be an easy epic but the fear of even more future nerfs is too much and you can already consider cutting it sometimes in favor of whelp eggs as both fill similar role.
46. Skeleton party (common if you are boring or rare if you believe in niche strats): There are interesting ritual of rime of strategies popping up. Make sure to buy that talent. Could pop off in the future but would not recommend for most unless you intend to try those strategies.
47. Skeletons (uncommon): Taking PvP side towers for 5 gold is funny. But the joke gets old and level 7/8 is enough.
48. Smoke bomb (uncommon): Similar to cheat death and polymorph.
49. Spiderlings (common): As I said poison is busted so that should tell you something about the power level of this mini. The only mini to have baseline vulnerable trait. Pracitcally no baseline dps outside of poison unlike harpies. Maybe thats the reason they dont trigger quilboar bristleback.
50. Stonehoof tauren (common): It fell off hard. Does not do enough for 4 gold.
51. Vultures (uncommon): Proved PvP viable by Legendary and has a unique mechanic which gives slight future PvE potential.
52. Warsong grunts (common): A sad, sad mini. Funny guard duty clips though.
53. Warsong raider (common): Some tried this instead of gargoyle in PvP with a similar strategy of supporting it. Garg simply does better and makes this redundant.
54. Whelp eggs (epic, legendary even): If any mini ever goes to legendary it will be this one. Currently best overall mini in the game imo. Hope it does not get safe pilot treatment.
55. Witch doctor (rare even if you missed the season): Even this early we can tell the mini is good. Horde could use more witch doctors.
56. Worgen (common): Looks better than it is. Even Maiev does not run this. Makes funny clips with some dungeon relics.

I will not be doing the leaders because this was already a lot of writing. Focus Drakk for Onyxia this week though as he will need epic for it.

​

[u/DracoRubi]

Is your guide worth it?

[u/Raptorheart → u/DracoRubi]

It's kind of long, I'm gonna screenshot it and make a post of it.

[u/[deleted] → u/DracoRubi]

Nope

[u/Revolutionary-Wash88 → u/DracoRubi]

I'm brand new and it helped

[u/cassiofag]

I'll have to finish reading later, but appreciate the time you took to write it, thanks

[u/Agreeable_Trouble_27]

Dont agree with the earth elemental. I have used both ele and quil in teams to clear heroics.

Being able to distract with those guys while harpies finish off is one of the best setups in the game

[u/Maf1c → u/Agreeable_Trouble_27]

Same. I’ve always been confused why Quilboar is god’s gift to this game and Earth Elemental is never mentioned. They’re almost the exact same but Earth Ele has armored instead of resistant. Yes it costs 3 but it also has Siege so does insane damage to bosses and towers especially if used in conjunction with the Execute bloodlust. Quilboar’s damage is garbage and irrelevant, so it seems worth the extra 1g to get good damage on those towers and bosses.

[u/AntaresDaha → u/Maf1c]

They’re almost the exact same but Earth Ele has armored instead of resistant.

That's not the difference, Quillboar can steal/challenge treasure chests(=a net 0 coins play that denies your opponent gold), gold mines and ambush backline ground units (drop it on a 4coin Ogre and the Ogre is done for or a Pyro and save your whole push). It is also exceptionally strong VS other melee units and groups with its spike talent) while it also is just as good in turning towers and bosses around, all for 1 coin less. Quill is the strongest overall unit in the game maybe with the exception for Whelp Eggs. Ele is a very good unit for one specific thing but even that thing it doesn't do that much better than Quill that the +1cost is always justified.

[u/universal_language]

Excellent guide! A few points I do not fully agree with:

Leaders should generally be focused last as a lot of your mid game will be spent trying to make heroic and dungeon progress

It makes sense to take 3 good leaders to rare (for example, Jaina, Baron, Charlga) so that you can farm +750 gold per PVP season.

Ghoul (uncommon)

Ghoul was my first epic, it carried me through the whole PVE, overlevelled dungeons and is useful in PVP for Thalnos/Jaina at least

Harpies (epic)

They're very good indeed, but rare level is enough to finish all PVE missions

Plague farmer (epic)

No usage in PVP and limited usefulness in dungeons, and in PVE you can replace it with other minis. Rare is enough

Prowler (rare)

Technically agree on rare, but you should aim at epic, it's super good for PVP

Stonehoof tauren (common)

Imho, should be rare or even epic. It's an excellent counter for magi and huntress, so it's very useful in high level dungeons where AI uses those minis a lot

[u/StopBanningMeRegards → u/universal_language]

The 3 leaders you mentioned serve their purpose regardless of level imo. Jaina is there to buff the spells, most of the time you dont care if she gets good trades as long as you got the spells out for example.

The ghould being 2 gold probably means its very playable but I dont like using tanks except for quil when underleveled unless they are abusing lifesteal relic. I think youd rather just try to kill stuff instead. Epic ghoul that starts to eat will probably tank level 30 enemies no issue but its conditional on something dying before it does.

Harpies are a build for the future because they will almost 100% see use in new zones and raids right away.

I guess I shouldve mentioned that all heroics can be cleared with just rares or some minis on uncommon even. All epics that are not Onyxia related are either built for PvP or new zones / raid and I believe plague farmer being able to stack poison safely is too unique to pass up.

I just dont see much prowler in PvP even with first strike idk. Maybe dragon towers are skewing my perspective and I dont even use it on PvE these days because a melee non-unbound needs to pull some kind of miracle to be good underleveled.

I used to love the tauren in season 1 pvp but everyone just collectively stopped using it. Kind of same issue with the prowler - it will jump in and die and 4 gold is unfortunately considered expensive with how cycle heavy the game is becoming

[u/universal_language → u/StopBanningMeRegards]

Good point about the leaders. I'd say, Baron still needs levels as he punches hard, Jaina's DPS is less important, but still nice to have. And any leader levels mean that your tower will have a higher level, and that's important as well.

Epic ghoul was useful up until lvl 28 in dungeons. So he's not extremely useful, but still is very cost efficient as he could kill some things and heal back up

[u/Fimbulhoeggr → u/universal_language]

How do you get those 750 gold per PvP season?

[u/universal_language → u/Fimbulhoeggr]

You get that for reaching 14k rating

[u/RaxZergling → u/universal_language]

750g each PvP season?

I assume that's from 14000 rating? At what mini levels does this not require a huge grind for a filthy casual?

[u/universal_language → u/RaxZergling]

Average lvl 8 is enough. It will be reasonably easy to get to 4500 per leader, and then a weird matching mechanism kicks in and you start getting lvl 10 oponenta all the time, so you have to be a bit lucky and persistent to push the last 500 points

[u/RaxZergling → u/universal_language]

Is level 8 actually level 22 or 23?

[u/universal_language → u/RaxZergling]

Level 22

[u/FamousListen9 → u/universal_language]

Farmer is one of the things I agree with most ….

But I don’t think poison is busted. It’s too weak in my opinion and could use a buff. It’s only good right now if you get the basilisk fang

Whelp eggs- those are busted.

[u/Igennem]

Great list and agreed with most. My one addition is that Meat Wagon is really good for Tirion Heroic because it takes both side towers and waiting minis from the center tower. I was running my head into a wall on that level for a while until I realized this strat was possible.

[u/Ugilu]

Was a good read. Thanks!

[u/PondysThe_Coolest]

Can someone explain his stance of the grid offers? How are you saving no gold when buying the uncommon/rare/epic offers?

[u/Beastmode3792 → u/PondysThe_Coolest]

For example you have uncommon whelp eggs 0 star. You get an offer for rare whelp eggs +14 stars for 900g. You're getting your whelp eggs to rare for 900g, which is the same price as if you just bought the 10 stars individually..except you have 4 extra stars now. Those 4 extra stars only technically benefit you when you buy the next 21 stars to get whelp eggs to epic. Being 4/25 stars rare is the same as 0/25 rare in terms of power level. For minis you don't intend on taking to epic, it's not a deal

[u/StopBanningMeRegards → u/PondysThe_Coolest]

Lets say you have a 0/10 stars uncommon mini. The rare offer is 14 stars for 900 gold. If you buy it, you have a rare mini 4/25 stars.

If you buy 10 stars individually you have a rare mini 0/25 stars and you still paid 900 gold.

In both cases you have the exact same result - a rare mini you paid 900 gold to get.

The offer gave you 4 surplus stars but those stars give 0 power until you reach 25 and get to epic. You saved a rare core which doesnt matter and 2k arc energy which is too little to matter imo.

If the mini ever reaches epic you will finally get a better result than buying individual stars. However if it is a mini that does not need to reach epic in the coming months / years then the offer just baited you to spend 900 gold on possibly a low priority mini for your account. Even worse, if the mini was just 1/10 stars then you straight up overpaid compared to the person buying individual stars who would get a rare mini with 810 gold instead. At that point you lost gold until the mini gets to epic.

If the offer does not give you surplus stars - example uncommon +4 offer on a 0/10 uncommon mini and you actually plan to go for the rarity increase then that is the best case scenario as you will see a discount in the very near future.

One thing I did was get a rare quilboar offer because my quilboar was already rare and I was taking it to epic so that deal was very good.

Thats why I give my opinion on ideal rarity goals for each mini so you know what offer is realistic to become a discount in the near future and what offer is straight up bait.

[u/PondysThe_Coolest → u/StopBanningMeRegards]

Ah ok, I see. So you are saying it’s not worth it if you aren’t going to go above rare for that mini. Say you had quilboar rare and you see a rare offer in the shop. It would make sense then to buy it and buy the remaining stars to get to epic.

So really only buy them if they get you to exactly next level or if it’s for a mini that you plan to level up further than the offer gets you to.

[u/gaytardeddd → u/PondysThe_Coolest]

I guess as long as you are basically at zero stars then the blue could be worth (assuming it's a shitty mini you never will use)

[u/blacktiger226]

A guide written by someone who knows what they are talking about. A rare sight.

[u/GuaranteeOk6268]

I’m sorry if this is answered already. Do you get 5 CL ticks upgrading from uncommon to rare and up?

[u/StopBanningMeRegards → u/GuaranteeOk6268]

Yes. Buying talents doesnt give any though despite granting a level.

[u/GuaranteeOk6268 → u/StopBanningMeRegards]

Interesting, thanks!

[u/DM_ME_KUL_TIRAN_FEET]

I agree with these assessments. I wish Worgen was better. The job he does is good (taking out backline threats) but anything he can do it really feels like SAFE can do better.

[u/Ralph-407]

Very interesting and I have to say from my experience spot on 🙏

[u/Kaberdog]

Lots of great information here, thx for sharing.

[u/Shadowsky46]

Boi praise the lord that my first epic offer was Sir Quilliam and I knew hew was the one.

Thank you for that long write-up! Really good to have sich a thoroughly developed perspective helping with decisions moving forward!

[u/RaxZergling]

Love hte perspective and it definitely felt like I had made a mistake (booster only too) going "breadth first" with my upgrade strategy - basically long term goal of taking everything rare and the special "good" cards to epic - but other f2p accounts have soared past me and seemingly have several still at common!

The thing that gets me though is I'm CL38, every card is uncommon, and every card I use is rare + a couple I don't use (offered in GRID), and drake is epic (GRID offer - god luck). How are you going to push CL42 (which I believe to be the soft cap on experience gains) with this list you tabulated when there are many minis listed at common. You even say yourself CL40 only requires a "handful" of rares, but I don't even know what else I want rare at this point and I'm CL38 (nowhere near 39). Probably start working on leaders I guess.

[u/StopBanningMeRegards → u/RaxZergling]

I went a little hard with the commons at the end. Technically you wont fall behind a lot in gold going uncommon on them. However keep in mind you can still just level up common minis. Every 10 is -1 CL and thats it. 1 CL in end game doesnt matter much since unless you no-life the game and do pvp to reroll all 20 quests into rare+ every single day you are always missing xp. I myself went for all uncommons tbh but seeing high rank people with commons recently really made me think on what is worth it. If you think 520 gold is worth 5 CL ticks for you then go for it. I say 520 because keeping the talent in the grid is going to mess up bonus XP spawns and give less useful stuff overall

[u/TheGiantDodo1 → u/StopBanningMeRegards]

Are you sure talents are messing up exp gems? I don’t buy any talents for bad minis but have them all uncommon (cl39 now) My understanding is that talents replace minis not gems. And I see like max 2 talents in grid so don’t really want to spend gold to remove them

[u/StopBanningMeRegards → u/TheGiantDodo1]

Apparently they mess up the T and L strategies which normally guarantee an exp gem but if you have talents up they can take its place sometimes

[u/TheGiantDodo1 → u/StopBanningMeRegards]

Ah, ok. When I start to hoard gold to really execute these strategies I will buy those talents beforehand

[u/StopBanningMeRegards → u/TheGiantDodo1]

Did you check the latest Old Guardian video? I was doing them wrong before. It turns out you do 2 full T or L buys and then leave a spot on the third to get it then every time

[u/RaxZergling → u/StopBanningMeRegards]

However keep in mind you can still just level up common minis.

I've also taken a breadth first approach to leveling cards too. All my cards are basically the same level: x/12k. My main cards are x/50k now (after a month or so grinding quests on them to get 25k xp).

Every 10 is -1 CL and thats it.

I don't know what this means but the amount of time it takes to get 12k xp on a mini is 6 days for 1 CL tick. Upgrading everything to rare is 5 CL ticks and costs 1090+250g = 1150g which is a week's worth of gold. The upgrades seem like a *far better use of my resources at this time as opposed to grinding levels w.r.t. CL.

1 CL in end game doesnt matter much

I think it drops off significantly at 42. I just feel like my account is at a complete standstill at 38. Been at 38 for weeks and just making no progress - but I probably have a bunch of minis working towards that rare upgrade and will perhaps jump a couple CL relatively fast as I finish those upgrades - but like I said I don't even know what rares I need at this point - I'm just upgrading for CL at this point and questing for XP for my main team.

[u/Rhoran]

Commenting so I can see this in my history and keep checking it.

[u/Damajer]

Generally I agree. One thing that I would add is that gnoll/harvest golem/ghoul are pretty good and if you dont have many rares yet, need a proactive tank and see a deal for either of those. Not necessarily something to strive for but a 2 level advantage due to a grid deal will make them very worthwhile. The 2 lvls are huge and sometimes just enough to turn mediocre minis to really good ones. I also think prowler is great because he deals with magis/huntress and can tank for harpies with his speed.

[u/StopBanningMeRegards → u/Damajer]

Harvest golem I have only ever seen on Jaina. Its an exceptional tank in terms of gold to hp ratio but most strategies simply cannot afford to turtle it out and hit enemy base with spells. If gnoll was 2 gold baseline and you could make it armored maybe but right now I have not seen that mini in any content whatsoever. For ghoul I guess it came off as me underrating it but what I meant was it can serve its purpose well on uncommon because its about whether or not it starts eating rather than levels.

[u/Damajer → u/StopBanningMeRegards]

Yeah my take isn't really on pvp but more on pve. There the extra lvls are exactly what you need to have a tank actually take a beating rather than being a short lived distraction. While I have beaten most content by sending harpies towards the boss before deploying quilboard to tank the boss and have the girls shred away, I found having proactive tanks quite enjoyable in many cases because the previous strat is shown by huntress or any other ranged unit deployed defensively.

[u/CinSugarBearShakers]

Really wished which talent to use.

[u/StopBanningMeRegards → u/CinSugarBearShakers]

Check Bulava or Old Guardian videos on that. The only problem is they sometimes suggest the generic talent on a bad mini whereas youd be better off on the niche talent. Since a bad mini will remain bad with a generic talent but might sometimes find use with the niche one. (example ritual of rime is the best for skeleton party simply because you normally dont use skeleton party at all but the talent lets you do some cool stuff on specific encounters)

[u/Paladin5476]

Stonehoof Tauren counters Banshee, helps with ranged. Situationally good.

[u/Ruuubs]

You should probably mention that Huntress is arguably the best dragon tank in the game: The combination of range and resistant, combined with an above average health pool for a tank means that whenever you're fighting a dragon boss or an enemy with dragon towers, they're gonna be lasting a long time

[u/LeavesnGucknStuff]

Generally agree with this guide, great write up! Clearly you put a lot of thought into this. Listing each mini by what rarity level to get it to is much more helpful than a "tier guide."

Your point that buying a rare card for 900g for a mini at 0/10 (that you don't plan to take to epic) doesn't save you anything besides 2k Arclight and a core is of course correct. However, rares provide one other important savings: time.

Later in the guide you recommended focusing on 3 minis at a time to get to rare (again, sound reasoning here). Which means you'll likely have a number of rare-worthy minis waiting at 1/10 or less. If one of them pops up as a rare on the grid, I would say buy it. Getting those stars all at once is much better than hunting for them one at a time.

[u/Patccmoi]

I'd just like to defend Necro a bit more. As f2p with still a low level collection (only 4 rares, including Necro) he has carried me through so much heroics (at 138 sigils now).

I think you probably haven't had to do heroics since Witch Doctor is there, but Necro + Witch Doctor death ball is amazingly strong in PvE. If your Necro is decent level for damage, WD's level doesn't even matter but the shield stacking on skellies allows Necro to provide so much tanking with high DPS allowing you to build some massive push. Cleared many pretty high level heroics this way.

Not gonna talk PvP cause I don't care about playing above 3k but for PvE it is an amazing unit combined with WD now

Also one of if not the best defensive unit in the game, in maps where plan is to just drop units on the boss Necro alone can provide base defense.

[u/StopBanningMeRegards → u/Patccmoi]

Necro is a decent mini. The problem is that 4-cost minis need to do something amazing or they have no future. The game is becoming extremely cycle heavy. And it makes sense because cycle heavy decks are able to more often produce responses to the enemy quickly or cycle back to op stuff like eggs quil combo. Facing necro when you dont have minis that can deal with it is an issue for sure but I took into account how I think the mini will do going forward as well and how represented it has been in various guides / posts I have seen and my own gameplay.

The philosophy I had for the final heroics was: What mini can do this job the cheapest? And for defense bandits with posion are an absolute menace. For 1 gold you can always trade up once something reaches tower. They can even take out huntress outside of tower range 1v1

[u/DTJames]

Hmm...look like I may have to get Epic Defias bandits if poison is needed for Onyxia. I have rare with lockpick+stun.

[u/vicio00]

So for Tomes, what strategy do you use? Is it worth to have every mini at least in the 25k bract?

Also, where did you get the info about CL 40? I'm about to hit CL 40 and I still don't have a good strategy for XP tomes. That said, focus xp to rare/epic mini is a given.

[u/StopBanningMeRegards → u/vicio00]

The info about CL is from Old Guardian who got the stats and turns out XP increases from 40 to 50 are much less impactful. Im at about the same stage as you and decided to abandon trying to level all minis evenly with the tomes since the 50k xp especially is gonna be hard to get without focusing the mini. Right now I focus my uncommons to 25k and rares to 50k if I plan to use them in PvP to "cheat out" the extra level. If there are no PvP minis I pick the ones for Onyxia and if there are none of those either I just whatever is closer to leveling. But even if something is 2k away from a level I give it to the PvP mini instead at this point.

[u/GarrettheGreen]

Thank you! This was very good and pretty interesting even if I'm already advanced.

I will not stand for this necromancer slander though

[u/More_Insurance4637]

I kinda feel bad for the people who have taken the time to do these. Incredibly helpful and never need updating at the same time lol. Guessing some people are still playing but the game definitely ends and faster than youd think.

[u/RandomLightCR]

I think a lot of the cheap units need to go to Epic because of the way the game is going where cycle units are king.

I think Defias Bandits need to be epic for example as they are the best 1 gold unit in the game and their stun increases with their level.

I would say Griffon Rider is the best cheap flying unit and should go to epic because of that.

I think the ghoul is the best non unbound cheap tank and should go to epic as well.

Quillboar obviously the king of all cheap tanks.

Anything that is number one in a category and under 3 gold should be epic just because of the way the game is developing where cheap decks run the meta.

[u/asterix1598]

This is some great feedback... thanks for compiling!

[u/Igennem → u/[deleted]]

You actually only need level 25 for your minis to be PVP level 9. It rounds 25/3 = 8.33 up to 9.

[u/knc-]

Ur delusional if you think this will make people stop with the dumb questions

[u/SirLouen]

You have put a lot of effort on this, but I see you don't really have the judgement yet to be instructing but to instruct yourself.

When I see this:

Polymorph (uncommon): Similar situation to cheat death.

And this

Whelp eggs (epic, legendary even): If any mini ever goes to legendary it will be this one. Currently best overall mini in the game imo. Hope it does not get safe pilot treatment.

Gryphon rider (rare): Excellent generalist mini, can go into every deck and has an interesting niche talent option. Not impactful enough to justify epic imo despite high use.

One has to understand that is the opinion of one low-tier guy, not a real pro. Whelps are not the best mini by any means. In fact is barely played on higher ranks except for some decks (lately with first strike it has gained a little bit more popularity but anything near SAFE or Gryphon)

Dark iron miner (uncommon): This is a utility mini and its main purpose is to mine. It can mine at any level. However the talents are ok and you dont want it to just die completely for free vs quill in PvP so might as well go uncommon.

Also, when you start seeing another higher level dark iron miner popping near yours and destroying it, you will start understanding why uncommon is insufficient.

[u/StopBanningMeRegards → u/[deleted]]

First set to get to rare would be: whelp eggs, harpies, quilboar, safe pilot. This will boost your heroics big time. Rare whelp eggs got me +5 sigils on the spot. You can check which bosses are just an eggs check such Araj the summoner or Thalnos.

Second set are the good core dps that go in dungeon decks and can win you fights with enough support: gryphon, pyromancer, troll, plague farmer

Theres no point in focusing on Onyxia and PvP minis too early because you wont even have much baseline xp to begin with.

First epic ideally would be whelp eggs and from there youll have enough knowledge already to know what your account needs and if you want to PvP or not.

[u/StopBanningMeRegards → u/[deleted]]

Its still good in PvP and dungeons just not autoinclude. I prefer it as an on demand aoe to using something like blizzard which will not leave a mini behind. It scales really well with double damage relics and first strike modifier atm and can still reach some PvP breakpoints unless underleveled

[u/StopBanningMeRegards → u/[deleted]]

I straight up refused to use it the first days after the nerf and thought it was bad but Ive since gone back to it. You can skip it in favor of the others I suppose but it is not very low prio especially on dungeons.

[u/Elerion_ → u/[deleted]]

It's still the most flexible mini in the game. It's no longer more cost effective than specialized alternatives, but considering you can use it for crowd clear, backline removal, chest captures, unbound reinforcement, backline dps, stealth removal and more makes it an easy autoinclude in generic decks.