Five Builds To Get Started In PvP – Ancestry Edition

When I first got into Hero Realms, the post Five Builds to Get You Started was an amazing tool that I used to familarise myself with the meta of Hero Realms. I took the ranger build and climbed it to diamond in a few months and really got invested in the game as a result. Plenty has changed since that post was created. There have been a plethora of balance changes, level 14 and level 16 got released, and most importantly, the wider population now has access to ancestries which have completely revolutionised the meta and the way each class gets built.

The aim of this article is to provide insight into how to build each class for the aim of competing in all levels of the PvP environment, with a particular focus on levels 12 and above. If you don’t have the Call to Arms or Journeys expansions required to get to level 14 and 16, don’t worry, this guide will still work for you.

Half Demon is the most consistent ancestry for cleric as it loves access to sacrifice in the starting deck. This build looks to utilise the healing provided by Bless of Soul, the cycle from Phoenix Helm, and the inbuilt sacrifice of the HD Demonic Blood to stall its way to the late game and take over.

In terms of level ups, we are taking Bless of Soul as it is by far the most consistent skill as it works even when the market is absent of champions. For the ability we are running Divine Resurrect as it is a much needed source of card draw in a pinch that allows us to potentially make a large purchases in the early game. Phoenix Helm is by far the best armour for cleric, as Breastplate is honestly just too slow and provides no benefit to the early and mid game.

For upgrade choices, Everburning Candle is great as it helps ensure that Helm is always turned on. Brightstar shield is the better option mostly because Ruinoos can be quite detrimental to your early game. Hammer of Light provides some much needed damage to the cleric starting deck that can be hard to come across. Ship’s Bell provides so much between the 3 gold and the ability to sacrifice it for a card draw that it’s impossible to pass up. Finally Spiked Mace of Glory really helps out with early economy, something that cleric traditionally struggles with.

We take Lesser Ressurect at level 12 because its a very powerful tool to use to revive a follower in the early game to help ensure Helm is turned on, and most importantly, means we don’t draw it in our second deck cycle to improve our economy.

Finally, this build also works for the Smallfolk and Elf ancestries. I would not recommend playing cleric with any others.

Fighter has one job in life, to reduce the opponents life total to zero as quickly as possible. Dwarf furthers this gameplan by adding more damage, and importantly weapons, to the starting deck. Overall this build aims to do as much damage as possible, as quickly as possible, to end the game before your opponent has adequate healing effects to stall us out.

Holistically, we will be focusing on the level up choices that give us consistent damage. Starting off with the skill, Shoulder Crush does 4 damage every turn, and while it may not look like a lot at first glance, it really adds up over time. Similarly, we grab Devastating Blow, because while it might look the blandest, over a large sample of games it will always do more on average than the other level up options. For the choice of armour we take Spiked Pauldrons as the 1 damage a turn is significantly more reliable than occasionally getting 3 damage from a guard. Additionally, Spiked Pauldrons and Shoulder Crush ensure that we will always draw a card with Throwing Axe. If you’re looking to take this build to level 16, you can forego taking HP upgrades to instead have a second 8 damage ability, however you may find levels 8-15 much more difficult.

For upgrade choices, we’re going to start with the level 11, because it justifies some other choices along the way. We take Sharpening Stone, because the conditional 3 damage outweighs the 2 damage from Rallying Flag. With all the weapons in our deck, the odds of missing Sharpening Stone are approximately 1/200 with no market purchases. At level 5 we take Hand Scythe mainly because its another weapon for Sharpening Stone, however the damage to a champion sometimes comes in handy. At level 7 we take Jagged Spear because the damage this card can deal is insane. At level 13, I prefer Bottle of Rum as sacking it first go for 5 damage gets the damage through quicker than Cutlass which you may only see once or twice in a winning game. Finally at 15 we go Flaming Longsword as the 1 additional damage is more important than the secondary effects on both weapons.

Finally, this build also works for the Ogre and Orc ancestries which are pretty similar in power to Dwarf, as well as Human however it is substantially weaker.

Ranger loves one thing in love above all else, drawing its entire deck every turn. Between all the bows and arrows and the recently changed 5/2 track (see 5, discard 2), the odds of seeing all your cards are quite high. Overall, this build aims to lean into the ranger’s strengths of turbo cycling to churn through your early purchases and win through a powerful mid game.

Speaking of the 5/2 track, that is what we are running straight towards. Seeing that many potential cards in your deck provides a lot of information and lots of room for creative decision making. Next up we level up our HP before starting to work on our ability, Snapshot. Snapshot provides a lot of power by being able to return two arrows from our discard pile and is effectively a draw 3 as a result. This means that we can make some large early purchases to see all the time thanks to our track. For the armour, I’m a fan of the Hunter’s Cloak as the flexibility between econ and healing helps our early turns massively.

For our upgrades, we start with the absolute no brainer of Light Crossbow at level 5. Having 2 bows in the deck improves the consistency of arrows substantially and there is no argument to pick the other upgrade. At level 7 we take Unending Quiver as it helps us dig through our deck even faster thanks to being able to return an arrow from discard to hand. At level 11 we take Flashfire Arrow as it makes snapshotting two arrows more consistent and provides a handy chuck of damage needed to trigger Hunter’s Cloak. At 13 we will take Spyglass to deck even deeper into our deck. Finally, at level 15 Horn of Need is the obvious choice as top decking champions gives ranger the teeth it needs to compete against the more powerful classes.

Finally, while this build is the standard for human, elf can experiment with a few different options such as a 3/2 track, Compass at level 11, and Parrot at level 13. I wouldn’t recommend any other ancestries for ranger.

Thief is the jankiest class around with a game plan that is highly variable depending on the opening market. Sometimes it goes fast, sometimes it tries to build for a classic turn 14-20 win, sometimes it goes super late. This build aims to utilise the most powerful tools in the thieves arsenal in order to maximise the odds of a quick win while enabling you to go to the late game.

We start by upgrading our skill straight towards lift. Even when you don’t factor in the health pool of smallfolk, the healing provided by lift is too good to pass up. Other variations may seem enticing due to the extra gold; however, it is often wasted once you get past the first few turns, and the extra health is crucial to beat fighter. Once we’ve done that we will take our ability to smooth heist. Everyone who has played hero realms for a while knows that this is the best ability in the game as it just wins games on turn 1 sometimes, however because its not necessarily reliable we take it after our skill upgrade. After this we take the much-needed health upgrades, however you can consider taking the first one prior to upgrading your ability if you are struggling with fighters. Our armour of choice is shadow mask. The ability to loop starting cards like knife belt and trick dice, our powerful cheap actions like Spark, Death Touch, Rot, Raiding Party, and Elven Curse drives the strength of the thief in the mid game

For our upgrades, we start with Keen Throwing Knife as it is reliable damage and can never go wrong. We then take the ever-crucial Knife Belt. While Sac Dagger is tempting, the card draw provided by Knife Belt and the reliability to access it provided by Shadow Mask is too much to pass over. At level 11 we take Blackjack as it helps make consistent plays with Shadow Mask. At level 13 we take Trick Dice as drawing two cards is very powerful and helps us dig through the deck even faster. Finally at level 15, I’ve elected to take the Sharpened Ruby so that we have a bit more reliable early game damage, however Brilliant Ruby is definitely also a good choice.

Finally, this build works on Human, Half Demon and Elf, with all the ancestry options being loosely equivalent in power and better than Human.

Wizard is currently the best class in the game, and it does it all. Channel is the best skill out there and it gets some amazing tools from leveling up. In addition, wizard makes the most out of ancestry compared to everyone else. This build aims to get to get to those high power turns we know and love as quickly as possible, to take over the game before any other class has come online and do it in a way where we can beat fighter.

The first level up we are aiming toward is Serene Channel. At higher levels, the healing is a must to beat fighter, and we don’t need the greedier channels to beat the other classes. After that we’ll take a health upgrade to further stabilise the fighter matchup, before running to Explosive Fireball. The ability to lock down the market row or mass discard champions is incredibly powerful, especially in the early game. For the choice of armour, Runic Robes are the way to go. Controlling your next turn is powerful in subtle ways. At worst, it keeps a gold or ignite out of your shuffle, at best, your treasure map and deception are always factioned perfectly. At level 14 we take a health upgrade because not dying to fighters is important.

For our upgrades, we start with Blazing Staff as the consistent +2 damage is substantially more impactful than the inconsistent 2 damages to champs provided by Serpentine Staff. At level 7 we are taking Arcane Wand as we have 4 actions in our starting deck as Half Demon, which really increases the amount of damage we do, especially in the late game when we start sacrificing gold pieces. At level 11 we are taking the Alchemists Stone to improve our early economy so that we can buy cards and use channel while sacrificing using Demonic Blood. Level 13 catapults wizard to a whole new level with the addition of Treasure Map to the deck. I fully expect this to be nerfed within a few months of this article going up as it is incredibly over tuned. Finally at level 15 we take Wizened Familiar as getting all 3 benefits of the cat is better than getting an extra health on it.

Finally, while this build is tailored for Half Demon, it also works perfectly on SF and Elf wizards.

Thanks for reading! Let me know what you think over on the Realms Rising Discord Server! Do you have a different build entirely that you’d recommend? Is there something you’d tweak to a particular build? Are you having success with one of these builds? Or maybe you’re struggling. Whatever it may be, I want to hear about it. See you there, heroes of the realm!