Have you become a lazy RPG gamer? I remember the days where you had to really think, grind and strategize how you play an RPG game. Runescape was my first MMORPG and even today, I still don’t understand all of its mechanics or explored even 10% of the map.
Oblivion was my all-time favorite open-world RPG. To think that the RPG genre has changed so significantly, it makes Oblivion looks like a 1998 classic.
RPG is a growing genre and constantly changing for the better (or worse). With mobile taking its shot to dominate the gaming industry, users prefer simplicity and idle mechanics.
This goes against the conservative view of RPG – where the gameplay was immersive and exploration was filled with massive adventure. Mobile gamers want to be able to play RPG games, without having to explore a massive 3D world or understand in-depth mechanics.
With that being said, Almost A Hero combines the best of both worlds. If you enjoy classic RPG elements or prefer simplicity and idle gameplay for your busy schedule, you’ll enjoy this Idle RPG adventure game. It has been featured as one of CrushThePixel best idle games of 2019.
Take An Idiot On An Adventure.
In Almost A Hero, there are 16 different heroes, each having its own backstory and abilities. The creator refers to these heroes as “Wanna Be’s” as they set out on their journey to defeat an endless wave of enemies. The hero list includes:
- Hilt (Attack)
- BellyLarf (Defend)
- Vexx (Attack)
- Kind Lenny (Attack)
- Sam (Defend)
- Boomer Badlad (Attack)
- V (Support)
- Wendle (Attack)
- LIA (Attack)
- Handsome Jim (Support)
- Tam (Support)
- RedRoh (Support)
- Nanna (Defend)
- Arbara (Attack)
- Uni (Attack)
- Ron (Attack)
All characters are categorized into three categories: Defender, Attacker, and Supporter. Attackers are offensive units that stun enemies, buff allies damage and critical chance.
Attackers are great to farm units and defeat waves more effectively. But, they lack health and defensive skills. Defenders are defensive units that buff allies defenses and taunts enemies. They lack damage, but can tank mods as you progress through higher levels.
Supporters increase treasure chances and gold loot. As the mods get harder with higher damage output and health pool, you may find it hard to acquire gold. Supporters make farming easier in order to use your gold to level each character.
In Adventure Mode, you can decide which hero will lead you to endless victory. I’ve mixed and matched different hero’s and was able to reach wave 1040 as we speak. This build includes Sam, BellyLarf, Wendle, Tam, and Arbara. Note: Certain characters may not be available to you when beginning the game and requires you to finish certain waves as a reward.
When you find it hard to battle through a wave level (i.e all of your wannabe hero’s die by an endless wave or cannot finish off a wave), you need to get stronger. This can be achieved by resetting the stage progress for bonuses called Prestige.
Alchemy: Regular & Mystical Artifacts
Once you prestige, you can acquire Mythstones as a currency used to level up artifacts. Artifacts give your hero’s bonuses, which may include decreasing upgrade cost, increasing heroes damage and overall health pool. This is the most important mechanic of the game and is central to progress further.
Understanding when and how to prestige is important. Of course, you do not want to prestige early, as the number of Mythstones you acquire will be too low to reasonably level up your artifacts and improve your auto battles.
To decide when to prestige or not is to evaluate how your heroes are performing in battle. Are they dying too often? Are you losing boss battles? I personally wait until my entire team composition is dead to decide when to prestige.
There are two artifacts type: Regular & Mythical. Regular artifacts having a common bonus and 4 unique bonuses, as well as a max level of 200. The common artifacts bonus include Hero Damage, Ring Damage, Global Health Bonus, Global Gold Bonus, and Global Damage Bonus. You can learn more about artifacts here. (We will be speaking in laymen for simplicity purposes)
Early on, you want to figure out the main set of hero’s you want to use in your journey and level most of your regular artifacts around your team composition. Current, I use the following heroes: Sam, BellyLarf, Wendle, Tam, and
I put most of my Mythstones investment into Hero damage, global gold, and health bonsuses. Each of the unique bonuses can be rerolled into different upgrades that can benefit your team composition.
This will help with farming through waves and leveling heroes. Any unique that decreases cost or improve damage, you want to keep in your artifact. Offline Gold Earnings is a great bonus for casual gamers as well.
Eventually, you can max out most of your regular artifacts until you are required to obtain a Large Artifact Tuner. Large Artifact Tuner is a Mythical that increases the level cap of your regular artifacts. If you are a beginner, you won’t have to worry about this until mid-end game.
Mythical is unlocked through Adventure Mode and offers more powerful bonuses and special abilities. Levels between mythical vary; some may have a max level of 200, whereas others can go up to 2400 max level.
I suggest spending wisely into Mythicals as they can become expensive and may require you to prestige often. So far, I’ve unlocked 11 Mythicals and experimented (A TON!). Currently, I suggest investing most of your Mythstones into the following:
- DPS Matter
- Life Boat
- Broken Teleporter
- Large Artifact Turner
- Free Exploiter
DPS Matter increases the core bonuses of your damage by +1% for 500 total artifact levels you have. DPS Matter helps with overall damage output and helps your units farm faster.
Life Boat increases the core health bonus by 1% for 500 total artifact levels you have. If your team composition has squishy units (i.e mostly supporters and attackers) – this will help boost their survivability.
Broken Teleporter allows you to clear stages faster after prestige if you clear a stage 15 seconds or under, you will teleport forward and depends on distance.
Large Artifact Turner increases the level cap of regular artifacts. You will find this item important as you hit a plateau in damage and overall health in higher wave levels. You may find it hard to grind towards all the quests in Adventure Mode. LAT continues to improve your regular artifacts level and increases all heroes power and global bonuses.
Hero’s Skill Tree Overview
Each hero has 11 skills that can be upgraded every level or from global rewards provide on the top of the Heroes menu. There are 3 main skills; 2 special abilities and an ultimate.
Each special ability has 5 skills that can be invested in that can either improve damage, decrease cooldowns, increase gold output or survivability. All skills are unique to that how and their playstyle.
Usually, you want to invest in skills that relate to that hero playstyle. I will make a guide for each hero skills, but to keep it brief, you want at least 1 skill point to each special ability to unlock both sides. Then, you want to commit to a single skill tree to invest points into.
For example, Wendle, I ensure Thunder Something and Out of Control has a single point. Then, I commit to Out of Control 5 set of skills and maxing out Forgetful, Craziness, and Double Missle for crazy damage output and farming ability. Then, I’ll focus on the other side, mostly into Spirit Talk to improve ring damage.
Thunder Something and Out of Control has a single point. Then, I commit to Out of Control 5 set of skills and maxing out Forgetful, Craziness, and Double Missle for crazy damage output and farming ability. Then, I’ll focus on the other side, mostly into Spirit Talk to improve ring damage.
For example, Sam, I ensure Shield em’ All and Slam has at least 1 point into it. I’ll hard commit to Shield em’ All skills tree, maxing out Master Shielder, Arrogant and Block for the main tank. This will ensure most of the damage is being put on him and he is able to buff as many allies as possible.
TIP: Do not use Randomly Assign Skill Points once available. I’ve tried it and it completely ruined the strength of my team. This may help with lazy gaming, but NOT worth it in the long run, especially at higher level waves. Take the time to spend your points wisely around your team composition.
Save Your Sc raps or Suffer.
Scraps are an important resource, if not more important than Mythstones. Use scraps to upgrade heroes items and evolve your heroes into more powerful units. They can also be used for Trinkets.
If you haven’t unlocked Scrap Mine, save any and all Scraps – especially if you are a Free-To-Play user. Do not waste them on your heroes just yet, until you are sure you will be using them in your final team composition to reach end-game. If you unlocked Scrap mines, do as many side quests as you can. This may require gems to skip the quests if it does not align with your team comp.
Unfortunately, I ended up spending my scrapes on heroes I currently do not use in my final build. Therefore, I cannot invest scraps into better heroes. But, the game offers some great deals if you have any spare change left around as it is well worth the price for a well developed game.
Trinkets & Forging Overview
Trinkets & Forging can help boost heroes with additional stats. Trinkets are equitable items that can be upgraded with Scraps. I do not find myself using trinkets as much since it uses a lot of scraps for a reasonable upgrade.
Therefore, only upgrade Trinkets ONCE you have a few spare scraps left. They do not improve your heroes by much and requires gems to Forge for any reasonable power benefit.
Only use Trinkets on heroes that can leverage its abilities. For example, Defenders Sam and BellyLarf will get Trinkets that improves health pool or special abilities that shield allies. or reduce revival time
My attackers, Wendle and Boomer will only receive Trinkets that increase damage output or attack speed. Whereas Supporters will mostly equip Trinkets with increased gold earnings. In rare cases, there may be Trinkets that support individual units better.
Play Time Challenge As Often As You Can To Progress
Especially if you are playing free, you want to maximize your efforts. Time Challenge is an event that unlocks after reaching level 50 in Adventure Mode. Each challenge consists of a wave that you have to defeat under a time limit.
If you defeat the wave before the time limit, you unlock the wave reward. These rewards can help you progress further in Adventure Mode and act as an additional means for resources.
I use a simple strategy: Insert highest DPS attackers that are currently not in Adventure Mode (since they cannot be used in battle) and spam level them as much as possible within the first minute. This will get you through most of the challenges quite easily.
Conclusion
It is no doubt Almost A Hero is one of the best Idle games for both Android & iOS. The interesting hero story, unique Idle gameplay mechanics and addicting RPG elements will have you tapping away for hours on end. Take your idiot out on an adventure!
