I know the answer must be more than 15.
Before I go on, I must say I’m a F2P player. This is the only Mobile game I’ve played in years, because I’ve read reviews that it’s only P2W at the top 1% competitive level, and still very friendly to F2P players. I think that’s very healthy for an online game if you don’t want the game to die within 3 years because 1. Free players quit out of frustration, and 2. Payers quite out of boredom. Also, I’m playing in Server 1, because I heard newer servers are way more competitive. As F2P, I don’t expect to be top-competitive.
I just unlocked Invasion 2 weeks ago. Next week, I will also unlock Moana from from shop tokens, that means I will have 50/55 heroes. In early game, I was hesitant to invest everything in a few heroes, because some lucky Diamond crates may give me better heroes. But now, with 50/55 unlocked, i’m sure it’s safe to seal a stamp on a number of heroes to focus on.
The question is: given the limited amount of resources, especially gold, how many heroes to work on?
A few things I have noticed since 2-3 weeks ago:
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Unlike early game, keeping every hero on your roster at maximum level (Team Level) is impossible. Not enough energy drinks to do it. 25 maxed heroes is a struggle; 30 is impossible. And when you unlock a new, good hero (like Hiro in shop now), it takes a chunk of drinks to bring them up to level with everyone else.
And you HAVE to bring the new hero to max-level if you want to use them, or even try out to see whether they are any good. What’s the point of having a half-leveled hero? What mode are you gonna play them in? None. -
If keeping heroes at max level is a struggle, keeping their skill levels is an impossibility. No gold!!! That’s the number 1 reason Miguel is my main healer: he does good healing which scales with stats, not skill level (unlike Mickey).
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You clearly need to build more than 15 heroes.
At first, you need only 5 in arena.
Then 15 in Coliseum.
Then at least 20 in Guild War, because of Off Duty.
And about 25-30 in Heist: Off Duty heroes, and heroes taken by other Heist members.
And Invasion: now you also need to choose hero by team color.
Even without the complexity of Invasion team color, I’ve heard that some day there may be up to 15 heroes off duty. So if 4 Heist members have taken 20 heroes, and 15 more are off duty, and I still need 5 more to join the Heist, does that mean I need 40 ready-to-go heroes?
- New heroes, and reworked heroes:
Like every other MOBA-ish games out there, there are top-tier heroes and weak heroes. Complete balance is unobtainable. And like every other MOBA, newly released heroes tend to be very strong if not OP. That’s understandable, the game needs to make a profit to survive.
As F2P, I don’t expect to have access to the new heroes until ~1month after release. But then, I might decide to switch my focus onto a strong new hero (the contest 2 weeks ago gave me a 4* Alice), or a strong reworked hero (Jack Sparrow, Merida).
The meta also shifts constantly. OP heroes are nerfed, low-tier heroes are buffed. There were the Shield meta, the Freeze meta (still strong), Charm meta; and now the Slow meta and Armor Shred meta. It’s unwise to stick with the same 20 heroes forever. You need to switch around a bit every few weeks to catch up with the new meta.
But as I mentioned earlier, the cost to bring a new lvl1 hero up to speed with everyone else is mountainous. It may take weeks to bring a hero up to level, all the while leaving every other hero in your team un-developed.
So, let the discussion goes: How many heroes should a F2P or light-spender focus on?