I won't answer all of these, but the daily gem pack and the BP are about the only things I buy, good decision.

For masteries, it's hard to get started. First you have to take your team of 5 all the way through and get fully mastered. Don't be mixing them out. Then once that is done you replace one of them for the next champ you want mastered and bring them up.

I will answer each one of your questions in sequence.

The answers I give you are only of my own opinion.

You can chose to follow my recommendations or ignore them.

I want to be clear.

There is more than one way to approach masteries, gear, & ascensions.

I am just telling you the way I go about it.

It doesn't mean that other people ways of approaching the above things are wrong.

Find the path which works for you.

This is simply the path which has worked for me.

My Answer to Masteries:

I am a spender. 

I buy the Gem Pack every month.

If you are in a similar financial position as me, I recommend using your Gems to buy out Masteries/Scrolls.

You can buy 1 hero with Full Scrolls for 800 Gems.

Your Gem Pack + Daily Quest Gems = 2,400 Gems per Month

You can use your 2,400 Gems to buy Full Scrolls for 3 Heroes per month.

My Answer to Gears:

I will talk about Primary Stats First.

I will talk about Secondary Stats (Sub-stats) Second.

If certain pieces of gear have a Bad Primary Stat, You will instantly sell the item.

Most times the Secondary Stats don't matter if the Primary Stat is garbage. 

Weapons - Helmets - Shields - Are the Top Row Gear.

The Primary Stats on the Top Row Gear never change.

The Primary Stat on them will always be a Flat Stat.

You have no choice when it comes to these items.

• Weapons will always be Flat Attack
• Helmets will always be Flat Health
• Shields will always be Flat Defense

What matters the most when dealing with those pieces of gear is the Secondary Stats.

You want them to have good Secondary Stats.

Gloves - Chest - Shoes - Are the Bottom Row Gear

The Primary stats on the Bottom Row always change.

The Primary stats on the Bottom Row are the most important feature of the gear piece!

If the Primary stat on the Bottom Row is bad, The gear is getting sold.

Leveling it up would be a waste of your Silver & Time 98% of the time.

Below is a picture of the different types of Primary Stats a Glove can have

Bad Primary Stats For Gloves:

• Flat Defense
• Flat Health
• Flat Attack

Gloves with the above Primaries are getting instantly sold 99% of the time.

You should purge your account from having any of the above Primaries.

It is good to purge your account of it's gear weakness periodically - I recommend every Artifact Enhancement Event.

Good/Niche Primary Stats For Gloves: 

• Attack %

Gloves with the above Primaries are considered good, but they are rarely used.

Most heroes who need Attack % Gloves often benefit more by having Critical Rate or Critical Damage Gloves.

This is why Attack % Gloves are labeled under the good category vs. excellent category.

Most times you are only using Attack % gloves for Niche heroes.

Some heroes in the game have Specific Abilities or Attacking Thresholds which benefit them more by having more Attack.

The reason I am telling you this is because having 0 - Atk % gloves on your account is bad, but having 10 - Atk % gloves is equally bad!

Its not good to have no Atk % gloves.

Its not good to over horde  Atk % gloves.

You want to have a couple sitting around on your account so if you pull a hero who benefits from them.

You can equip it to them.

You are keeping a low end amount of these gloves because the heroes who benefit from them are in the minority.

Excellent Primary Stats For Gloves: 

• C.Rate
• C.Damage
• Health %
• Defense %

The majority of your heroes are going to want to use gloves with one of the above Primary stats.

These are the gloves you want to horde the most!

These are the gloves you want to store the most!

The Creme Dela Creme of high end Gloves!

[I'm exceeding the text limit for 1 post]

To Be Continued on Another Post...

To save Forum Space:

I will not go through Chest & Shoes the same way as I did with my previous post on Gloves.

You are obviously new.

I'm not trying to over whelm you with information.

Below is a picture of the different types of Primary Stats a Chest can have

A Quick Summary of how I grade these things!

Bad Primary Stats For Chest: 

• Flat Defense 
• Flat Health 
• Flat Attack

Good/Niche Primary Stats For Chest: 

• Accuracy
• Resistance

Excellent Primary Stats For Chest: 

• Defense %
• Attack %
• Health %
  

Same sort of logic as Gloves.

• Your selling the Bad.
• Your keeping a couple of the Good.
• Your hording the Excellent.

Below is a picture of the different types of Primary Stats a Shoe can have

A Quick Summary of how I grade these things! 

Bad Primary Stats For Shoes:

• Flat Defense  
• Flat Attack 
• Flat Health  
  

Good/Niche Primary Stats For Shoes:

• Attack % 
• Health %

Excellent Primary Stats For Shoes:

• Defense % 
• Speed

Same sort of logic as Gloves. 

• Your selling the Bad. 
• Your keeping a couple of the Good. 
• Your hording the Excellent.

The above pictures + information I gave answers your question in regard to main stats [Primary Stats] on gears.

As for Secondary Stats, They are there own Topic.

They are there own can of worms!

You are still a new player.

Most of the gear you will keep or sell will be decided by the Primary Stat.

Secondary Stats don't play a major roll, until you begin getting dozens & dozens of gears with the same Primary stats.

Speed Primary Stat on shoes is Excellent, but what happens if you have 50 pieces of gear with Speed on them?

Eventually, you will reach a point where you hit max limit of gear space 700.

You will have dozens of gears with the same Primary Stat.

You will have no room to farm new gears.

At that point, You have to become picky with your gears.

The way to become picky with your gears is to begin comparing each gears Sub-stats with each other!

It's an Advanced Gear lesson for another day.

Your not there, yet!

Keep farming - Rid yourself of your gear weakness!

My Answer to Ascension:

The game does a lot of missions + quests + potion drops.

You will often store up a lot of Potions.

Potions will accumulate on your account over time.

It happens because you get them from Arena Reward - Clan Boss Reward - Dailies Reward - Missions - etc.

The game puts them everywhere to dilute the pool of rewards.

You will get them from a lot of places.

I don't think potions are a huge problem.

The best thing to do is to wait!

Now keep in mind, I am a Raid Player.

I have played for a very long time.

It feels like forever!

There has been times in my Raiding Career where I have felt antsy!

I have came online with the Attitude of:

• I can't wait to Fully ascend my hero, a week from now! 
• I want my hero Fully ascended, now!
  
• My hero needs to be fully ascended for maximum performance.
• Everyone in my arena list is fully ascended!
• I'm the only one none ascended - This is absurd!
  

If you find yourself in a similar position as the one I am describing, Than I want you to ignore everything I am saying to you!

The Spirit Keep is open!

My hero is Spirit Affinity!

I have waited long enough to get Spirit potions - I'm not waiting any more!

You got an itch to scratch.

You go ahead and scratch that itch.

You go to that dungeon all Hellbent & Angry.

You give that dungeon boss a piece of your mind!

You don't come out of that Dungeon, until the mission is done!

That's the only way to go about it!

So to recap - My General Rule is to wait & accumulate potions from various places.

My exception to the General Rule is to do keeps if you have a Mission or if your feeling fired up!

Yep - That's the way I did it.

My Answer to Glyphs:

Save them for good pieces of gear.

You will often need a lot of them to do certain things in the endgame.

They are used a lot to fine tune champions for Late Game Clan Boss.

You will run out of them a lot.

My advice is to save as many as you can.

Do your faction wars every day.

Even if you can only do the 1st stage.

It's ok - Keep doing it - Let them build up - You will use them later!

And that was all the questions you asked!

Hopefully, I have given you insight on a few things to look out for!

Happy Raiding!

Hello. 

As a completely F2P, and noob, I find myself agreeing with most of what Player J is saying. 

I heard much the same from my initial clan mates.  I felt dispare.  My first F2P I had obviously hosed being in too much of a rush... I hit a dead end campaign normal stage 10. I farmed stage 9 and potions until I had a couple 50's my energy was completely gone (and you get a crap ton of energy early off if you use mission and challenge rewards.  I did some assentions, and skill books, and progressed a bit more, but then, I hit an even bigger wall soon after on hard stage 4, even with my full team now 4-50's  Forget farming anywhere in hard.  I was still stuck on early dungeon levels... and forget spider... (I still ignore that B*T*H).  Arena was a complete bust. 

My personal advice.  PATIENCE. 

I rolled a new account, and focused my attention on my starter, as was highly recommended by my clan mates.  Fortunately this also happened to coincide with the latest back to back champion rush events, and some bonus rewards and energy.  Get that starter to 60 as your first priority.  Period.  The jump from maxing each star level far outweighs the Assent bonus, from what I can tell so far.  (I could be wrong, for 5-6 assentions.... not personally there)

Keep up on your missions and challenges for rewards... even those obnoxious win % crap from some stage ones.  Dedicate 50 or so energy each day... they will eventually drop.  Continue your relentless drive to leveling food (1 and 2 from all those green shard drops), they will eventually become your 3, 4, and finally.... 5 food for your starter.  

For my starter, I chose Elhain.  She is still my personal favorite, although many will argue Kael for clan boss.  I have a couple poison monks from all those greens who seem to serve just as well on easy clan boss, which is all I am concerned with for now.  (PATIENCE).  

I've focused on only my starter Elhain.  Finally got her to 60.  I am still using my new player purple vampire reward gear, and two attack 5 star I managed to pick up from the daily battle reward level 16 or so.  I not only broke through my previous wall, I shattered the entire damn thing, and was able to solo all the way up to hard level 8, where the force (red champs) gave me a severe beat down.  I should note that focusing on my starter, I currently have no 50's.  They were all lunch (except Assassin and Crusader).  I took my Warpriest, Assassin, and Crusader (all normal campaign rewards) and had easily leveled them to 40s during normal play through and champion challenge.  With them still at 40 and in my party, I got past that minor wall, I couldn't pass stage 10 even with party, so settled in farming hard stage 9 for a while.  (DO NOT worry if you can't do hard/brutal 12-3 or 12-6 all the time as all the "youtubers" and "influencers" preach.  Farm where you can.  For me it was normal 9 whatever a for a while.  I never ended up farming normal 12-3/6 at all, since I essentially jumped from 9 normal to 9 hard solo. (PATIENCE)

It turns out farming 9 has some other advantages, as well.  Warmaiden.  She is a F2P arena must.  I have collected enough copies of her to finally get the cooldown bonus on her decrease defense buff.  Stage 9 also has Berserker.  He ended up being a nice little nuker for my arena, even though I knew I would replace him if I ever managed to pull an Aethel, Kael, or someone better.  I did luck out and pull Galek yesterday. While not my preferred choice, F2P beggars cannot be choosers.  He will fall into place nicely in my arena, clan boss and dungeon teams for now, and I plan on 6ing him if I don't end up with anything better.  With his self speed buff, I do prefer him over Berserker... but no skills yet... I may float both around a bit since Beserker is farmable for skill boosts

Overall, while this is completely my personal opinion and subjective.  I am completely F2P.  I felt hopeless enough to start a second account after I felt that I had wasted my wealth of free energy that new players can amass from mission and challenge rewards.  I started over and exercised a bit more patience.  I also followed some clan mate advice.  My progress has been much more satisfactory than I initially had.  

My Elhain is now 6 star and fully booked (fully booking was again clan advice on my starter).  I've assended her just 3 times (and once for my Galek) as potions and assention challenge missions have come up.  The rest will come later.  I see even more mission rewards for all potion levels on the "hard" mission quest chain.  DO look ahead at missions, see what may be in store.  That greater arcane you need, may be a mission reward just down the road a bit.  No need to grind high level dungeons just yet.  PATIENCE.  

My arena team is shaping up. I took some more clan advice and farmed Spirithost (campaign stage 4).  She was a great addition.  With her and Warmaiden, I get speed boost and increase attack from Spirit Host, along with (occasional) decrease defense from Warmaiden.  I am not sure if unskilled Galek is a good swap for Berserker quite yet, I also just 4 stared him, so need to max level yet.  I will obviously need to pry some skill books from my vicelike grip and use them, while praying to the RNG gods.  Either way.  I have broken into bronze 3 and have pretty much stayed there for the past few days.  You may see me in silver soon. 

My clan boss team is OK.  My two poison monks are both 3 star max level.  I just have to deck them out in all HP gear, and keep them alive with Warpriest so that I can use the poison more than once per battle.  I got lucky and summoned another poison monk.  I fed him for skill up, and the RNG gods were pleased, and rewarded my faith and dedication with the poison cool down, not one of the worthless dagger skill upgrades.  I can usually get 1M+ for the max (easy) chest reward with 2 keys, sometimes I need to hang around for another key to polish off a final 20-30K damage for the best chest reward.  Generally clan boss rewards even on easy are better than I can reliably farm on dungeons yet. 

Dungeons, I still pretty much still avoid, unless I need for mission or challenge rewards.  Clan boss rewards although fewer, seem to be of higher quality, compared to what I can farm.   One exception is Minotaur.  I hit him 3-4 times per day for the weekly dungeon boss challenge, plus some scrolls as a bonus.  I don't worry about maxing masteries yet.  I found my first 900 gems were a bit more fun to spend on the 11 ancient shard pack.  That is where I pulled my Galek.  I can solo Minotaur 9 (most people would say big deal.. but I say PATIENCE).  So Ehlain is max on the first two rows of masteries from solo runs.  With these daily runs I usually can guarantee 9-14 scrolls to any other champ I want to drag along, or even get a few green scrolls for Elhain.  The spider queen B*T*H from H*LL can just go F*CK herself.  I got stage 1 for the early mission.  No way possible for stage 4 and the dungeon challenge, yet.  I need to research a proper F2P team for that B*T*H.

My current new player reward gear still seems a bit better than any 3 or most 4 star I can farm yet.  It seems I was lucky with RNG gods as my life-steal new player reward set ended up with both crit% and crit damage%, and work very well for my Elhain.  So, I won't focus on gear farming quite yet, as much as just food for my next 60 (probably Galek).  However, I am watching for all the % stuff as Player J has suggested.  His (advanced gearing) advice not yet posted, is probably (in my opinion) to simply, upgrade some grey gear to level 4 and greens to level 8.  Look at the new secondary stat that appears.  I aim for all percents, and toss the static scores, except speed which is always static.  SPEED IS ALWAYS STATIC.  Don't sell speed... almost never if you can afford the space.  Every champion benefits from extra speed here and there. 

WOW... sorry that got long.... 

For those TLDR. 

PATIENCE.  I am completely F2P.  I've have just picked up my day 18 ancient shard login reward only today. Following the advice of players like Player J and some clan mates, I have not only broken though my previous brick walls, I've gone and shattered them and flown right by stages on hard that I had initially thought impassable.... only this time I did them completely solo with my starter Elhain, three staring entire stages with glee the entire way, picking up even more bonus rewards.    

In my opinion.  First, focus primarily on getting your starter to 60 at all costs.  Second, focus on mission and challenge rewards rather than dungeons at this point in time.  The rewards for these outweigh any of rewards from the dungeon grinding early low level teams can do.  Rewards are also super overloaded with bonus energy. Between mission, challenges, daily play time rewards, and the daily battle reward progression, I have yet to spend even a single gem on energy bottles.  (Another reason I chose to spurge gems on ancient shards over the mastery scrolls). 

Getting to bronze III for mission and arena challenge will probably make you want to smash your head on the keyboard.  Go hunt down Spirihost and Warmaiden.  Bronze III should in then be within reach, if not already.   Silver level...  Even I will see on that one.  I can breach bronze 4, but then get knocked down to bronze 3 or even sometimes bronze 2... 

All in all.  PATIENCE.  Plan ahead on missions and challenges for spending your energy, versus rewards.  Grind your potions when you can win even bigger potion rewards from mission or challenge rewards.  Assentions will come with these rewards.  Arena, and clan boss will come in time.  Gear (lastly in my opinion) will also come in time.  Then is truly your time to grind dungeons.  "Scratch an itch" if you need to, I absolutely agree.  Test how strong you have become with assentions and that rare "good" gear you do stumble on, or upgrade.  I still have a personal vendetta with the spider B*T*H, and just have days where I need to see of I can get my revenge.  Alas... I still can not complete spider 4 for my dungeon challenge... it will come in time also.

Patience, Have fun and enjoy.  

all cool... but, prepare to stay in bronze 3 for weeks! and run into a dead end in mission progression and Arena challenge as both ask to reach Silver 1. At least that is MY experience, i did pass to bronze 4 but then set back to 3 because the hi end LVL 60 teams, fully ascended, and booked that are lurking around there...

I already did all what you advise there, made my main a level 60 and book him with RARE skill books (do not use epic books on them EVER!) haven't master them as for that i need 800 gems or spend a life time of energy in Minotaur.... (currently saving the little gems i get here and there to buy the 800 pack mysteries for my starter champ, but it's taking FOREVER) because between the mine, opening slots in MP and opening another stable in the fight pit i run out of gems, and you need all that crap to progress in the game...

Also I agree with you 100%, but i figure out on my own, and thought maybe i was losing time but you confirm is the right thing to do for newbies, and that is that the best stage to farm for silver and experience as a newbie is dead lands 9-3 because shield sell better than any gear,  magic is strong against spirit, which most of the enemies are in that stage, and the void dudes in last wave lose a turn hulking up their defense because AI is stupid AF , and lastly you may get a copy of WM and Berserker to book them up with extra copies of this champions instead of skill books) I guess eventually when WM and Bererker are fully book i can move to brimstone 12- 3

By The Way, where to farm for decent gear ? ...most tubers advise not to go in dungeons as newbies, but you can't farm for descent gear in campaign because even in brutal you get ONE crappy 3 star grey gear in every run; like ALL THE TIME, not even mention flat stat, which EVERYBODY say is a BAD stat, but the game keep dropping it to you, i believe it's only to annoy you, and hinder your progress, maybe because  Green shards, crap champions, and brews are not enough for that job... the best gear drop in Campaign i have get are 4 star uncommon, and that is a rare drop too say the last as common gear is a dime a dozen here, REALLY ANNOYING.

Another advice tubers give, is to play the game in blues tacks program, and not palarium play; Blue Stacks is an emulator for android on PC, you can program a clicking session so the game runs infinite amount of time, guess over night (yeah they bypass the miserable 15 and now 30 auto-runs the game gives by default as IF that is enough ...seriously! ) but even though they bypass the grinding auto runs... i don't want to do that, don't want to stress my PC on playing a game that plays itself over night to be honest.  But that is an option if you don't mind putting your PC on birth labor over night to satisfy you game progress ambitions. and again to do this you need to invest gems on energy refills or have a stock of energy in reserve, the first not possible for F2p players and the last something EVERYBODY advise against as the game "gives you free energy and you must take advantage of it" they say. 

Player J said:

And that was all the questions you asked!

Hopefully, I have given you insight on a few things to look out for!

Happy Raiding!

Thank you so much for that detailed answer on gears. I finally understand the stats!

Yep. 

It seems that gear is really a drag until one cal effectively farm high level dungeons where they guarantee a 4 star, but that is dungeon 10.  I am not even close yet.  Neither can you chose what piece you get, let alone the set it belongs to.  More RNG.  At least where we can get a 4 star geer in campaign, we can choose what piece and set from the campaign level.  True it will take a while for even a common to drop. (I am currently 4 days into the damn challenge for 4star %HP plate from hard castle.  I could swear I have not even seen a 4 star drop to even excite me yet.  Oh well, I limit myself to 60-100 energy for that drag.  It will eventually drop. 

That is why I mentioned clan boss and arena.  It seems I get better quality gear (though much less, and completely random) from reward chests.  Always something to look forward to.  That and battle rewards even F2P have been a great addition.  I have gotten a full 5 attack and full 5 HP gear sets to mix and match on my champions.  Even if "poor" static base stats, at level 12 upgrades they out perform 99% of any static stat gear we can hope to reliably farm in campaign on hard.  Rewards seem to be our best hope for gear upgrades as noobs, and F2P.  I have even considered buying battle pass to get my hands on the second row gear reward sets for the additional gear, especially when gear "deals" from the store pop at 25-30 USD .  No hope for weekly battle pass rewards though.  SImply too much energy requirements for "defeat dungeon boss 100 times with a debuf"... WHAT THE F>>>...   Not for FTP, or even a basic battle pass.  More to whales and youtubers. 

So I remain FTP, patient and content.  It takes me forever to beat most games.  And I never reach "end game" on any MMOs.  But that is how I roll. 

Also.  I saw you mentioned GEM unlocks.  Glad you unlocked market.  That was clan advice for me too.  Watch for 4+ gear which is green or better where we can see the secondary stars  Expensive yet, but we are grinding silver from campaign shields anyhow.  Even a common 4+ ican worth a gamble plus upgrade to level 4 if we luck out and see some of the good or excellent % stats Player J has thoughtfully explained.  Even I never have taken gear quite that seriously yet.  I have a lot of "POOR" gear setting around yet.  Mostly, just to quickly place cheep placeholder gear when I need a quick pair in speed or crit or what ever. 

Never looked into blue stacks.  There was some advice on using it in multiple windows to cheat and get your first couple of champ pulls to guarantee a blue champ, but it involved starting complete over from the tutorial every time.  It sounded more like cheating anyhow.  As far as running all day long with auto clickers.  F2P...  noobies... we just don't have the resources to keep the energy monster happily fed.  I consume one of my daily energy rewards earned the night before, and run my multi battles with a queue full of food, all while I shower and get read for work in the morning.  On 9-3 pretty good exp... sometimes I see another warmaiden or berserker for another food skill upgrade... most times not... and.  By the time I get home from work, my exp has regenerated enough to play at night for the daily rewards again, and do some of the challenge and mission stuff I can work towards.  

Areana... yea... ladders and slides it seems for ungeared noobies.  Though it often seems more slides.  I just can not stay in bronze yet.  I don't know if I need a different team for area defense.  More defense, shields buffs, regen, and healing maybe.  I did farm executioner, and have him to 40.  I also pulled a blue defense champion with a continuous heal for all allies skill.  With executoner and his counter attack, continuous heal dude, warpriest heal and attack buff, and purple daily log in reward demon chick that can resurrect an ally, maybe I can put together a defense team that does not slip down the areana slides quite as fast as my single battle/defense team I currently use.  It is only a thought experiment now, but may be worth trying.  Not many people mention if they have different arena defense teams, separate from their main speed nuker teams, unless they want to "derank" for event rewards.   And bless they that do... since I already seem to derank easily enough byself... there are pleanty of extra rewards to be had from the arena event as I continuously try to permanently climb out of the hole that is bronze III.

You are doing well, and have the right idea, judging from your initial and responding messages.  Listen to your clan mates and even general chat.  People are always willing to help.  I trust them more than the whale youtubers and influencers.  And remember, unless we P2W, it will always be slower progress than F2P.   Scratch an itch when you must.  Buy that gem pack, or another good deal like battle pass.  The additional equipment rewards and potions from gold daily make it worth the cost.  Even I am considering scooping that up for my first eventual purchase.  I just need to make sure the gold dailies are retro active... and don't start over for daily reward totals.  I may never see some of the extra potions and equipment if that is the case.  There is a forum post some where, where a guy evaluated all the store deals, even the gem deals, and ranked them as poor, good, and excellent as Player J has done for equipment.  I didn't book mark, and can not seem to find again, but keep an eye out.  Know your store deals before opening your wallet.  My wallet is closed tighter than my vice-like grip on skill tomes, which is tighter than... well, you get the idea.  I won't be had as a fool with my money.