How To Read An Empires & Puzzles Hero Card
Do you know how to read an Empires and Puzzles Hero Card? This post is written with new players in mind, but I’m sure there’s something for everybody. I don’t claim to have all the answers, but I’ll share what I do know, and the results of my research.
If you see a mistake or have information to contribute, then please leave a comment below.
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MENU (Empires and Puzzles Hero Card Guide)
1. Hero Cards Explained (A-Z)
2. Hero Card: Special Skills Order
3. Hero Card: Attack, Defense, & Health
This post may contain speculation, personal opinion, and adult comedy. It is not advice and is solely for entertainment and informational purposes.
Understanding Empires and Puzzles Hero Cards
Every Hero in Empires and Puzzles has a card. On that card, you’ll find information such as their stats and Special Skills.
I’m going to work my way around a Hero Card and explain what every part means. I’ll also explain how to read and understand the Hero’s Special Skills.
E&P Hero Card Explained (1-15)
1. Magnifying Glass – Press to see a full-screen-sized image of the Hero, with their formal title. Once triggered, you can draw on the screen with your finger to produce a fireworks effect.
2. Padlock – Remove the possibility of accidentally feeding your Hero by ensuring this element is displaying a closed padlock symbol (as seen in the graphic).
3. Hero Image – An image showing you what your Hero looks like.
4. Shield – Relates to the Hero’s element color. In this case, it is the shield for all Holy (yellow) Heroes. Also used in the Element Wheel, which explains the power of one element over another. See fig 1 at the end of this section.
5. Hero’s Name – The given name of your Hero.
6. Stars – The rarity of your Hero measured in stars. In this case, Devana is a 5-Star Hero.
7. Exit – Exit button, used to withdraw from the Hero Card page.
8. Power – The ‘Power’ of your Hero in battle. Power represents the combined value of your Hero’s Attack, Defense, Health, and Emblems.
9. Hero Card Color – The color of the Hero Card is the element (or color) of the Hero. In this case, Devana is a Holy (yellow) Hero.
10. XP – XP represents your Hero’s experience points. This value grows by feeding your Hero other Heroes, in order to ‘level them up’.
11. Attack – The sword represents your Hero’s Attack strength.
12. Defense – The shied represents your Hero’s Defense strength.
13. HP – The heart represents your Hero’s total Health.
14. Talent Grid Path Value – This number represents the number of Nodes you have progressed in the Talent Grid.
15. Ascension Chevrons – These stripes are connected to your Hero’s XP experience points (#10 on this list). There are four main Ascension levels available to 4 or 5-Star Heroes. There are three levels for 3 and 2-Star Heroes. And, two levels for a 1-Star Hero. As you breach each level, these chevrons light up.
E&P Hero Card Explained (16-27)
16. Talents Tab – Once you have fully Ascended (levelled-up) a Hero, you can apply Talents by using Emblems. When you have activated their Talents, this tab will show on the card. Talents are associated with their Class, for example, all ‘Ranger’ Class Heroes will benefit from the same Pierce Talent.
17. Special Skills Description – This is a list of your Hero’s Special abilities which can be triggered after you have filled their Mana meter in battle. See below for a section on how to understand your Hero’s Special skills.
18. Talent Grid Button – Press this button to open the Talent Grid page, where you can attach Emblems to apply their Talents and upgrade your Hero. This boosts the Hero’s Attack, Defense, and HP stats, and offers various bonuses, depending on the Path you choose.
19. Limit Break Button – Limit Breaking is a relatively new feature allowing you to further improve your Hero’s stats. Press this button to open the Limit Break page.
20. Chain-link – This symbol represents an Element link; a skill which some Heroes have that will help or benefit all other Heroes of the same Element. It is the same color as the Hero. So far, they are found on Hero of the Month Heroes issued since April 2018.
21. Cool Image – This small graphic is a visual representation of your Hero’s Special Skill. Here with Devana, it is an image of a Lynx.
22. Special Skill Tab – Once you have fully levelled a Hero and the Talents Tab (#16) appears, your Hero’s Special Skills will also receive a tab so that you can toggle between them.
23. Hero Level – The level of your Hero represented as a numerical sequence of digits.
24. Passive – Your Hero’s Passive skill. Tap this icon to view a pop-up box containing the details.
25. Passive Plus – If your Hero has more than one Passive skill, it will appear here.
26. Hero Class – There are currently 10 Hero Classes: Cleric, Barbarian, Fighter, Wizard, Druid, Monk, Paladin, Ranger, Sorcerer, and Rogue. This area will display an image representing your Hero’s Class. Tap the icon to see the name of your Hero’s class.
(not shown on sample) Family/Realm/Costume Bonus – If your Hero benefits from any of these bonuses, you will see another icon under the Hero Class icon. Tap the icon to view a pop-up box containing the details.
27. Team Cost – The value of your Hero when used as part of a team in Empires and Puzzles. Overall Team Cost is limited to 130. Five, 5-star Heroes, who each have a Team Cost of 26, equals a total of 130. All this means that Team Cost is wholly redundant and not relevant in the game.
– Since publication, a reader (David P) has explained: Team Cost was initially created so that low-level players who spent a ton of money acquiring powerful Heroes couldn’t dominate the game, and so limited them as to the max level they could use. At player level 30, you reach the max of 130 anyway, so it is now virtually obsolete.
Hero Card: Special Skills Order (Empires and Puzzles)
Every Hero has a Special Skill which will be described on their Hero Card. This is the description box for Devana’s Special Skill called ‘Arrows and Claws’.
When reading a Special Skill description, you’ll note that they are separated into sections starting with a bullet-point symbol. Each bullet point represents an action (or event) which will occur when you activate the Special Skill. And each behaviour will occur in descending order; starting at the top and working its way down the list.
So for Devana’s Special, as seen in the graphic below, the order of events is this:
- Devana will deal 225% damage to the target and nearby enemies.
- Next, she will Summon a Lynx Minion for herself.
Actions will always occur in chronological order according to their position on the list. You may find that some skills are not applied at the time of activating the Special, but they will still be applied in order of the list. For example, Morris jumps out of his hole after 2 turns to deal damage to a random enemy, and then the enemy receives a status ailment.
Sometimes, it’s important to know the order of events because it can affect the battle. For example, it may be important to note that Mother North heals the team before she revives fallen allies. But, she Summons an Elf Minion for all allies after she has revived fallen allies:
That means that revived allies do not benefit from her 30% healing. They miss out and have to get by with the 10% HP associated with their re-birth. But they do get a pet Elf.
Finally, Passive Skills, Element Links, Talents, Realm and Family Bonuses, can impact events in ways you might not imagine (until it happens). For example, Bera enjoys a Realm Bonus which means that when she dies, she reduces the mana of all enemy Heroes.
The result is that, if your Heroes are fully charged by the end of the round, they will lose their charge if Bera dies in that turn.
However, Devana has an Element Link which gives all Holy Allies a small amount of mana ‘at the end of the turn…’. So, after Bera has died and reduced the mana of all Heroes, Devana will then boost all Holy Heroes at the end of the turn. And under the right circumstances, return Holy Heroes to fully charged.
I have an example of this happening in my Devana review (in the Update section).
TOP TIP: Did you know that you can click and hold onto any Hero in battle, to see their stats and Special Skills info? It will also show status effects, including the number of turns left, and show changes to the base stats as they are applied.
So if you see an icon you don’t recognise hanging on your Hero, you can simply click and hold to see exactly what it’s doing to them! See example below:
Hero Card: Attack, Defense, & Health (Empires and Puzzles)
Each Hero has a given value for Attack, Defense, and Health. These values are used to calculate damage in Empires and Puzzles.
Here’s how it works:
Attack: The strength of your Hero’s strike while on Defense, or the Hero’s contribution to the value of tile damage. The higher the number, the greater damage they inflict.
Defense: How much your Hero can resist damage.
Health: How much damage your Hero can take. (Side note: Health totals also determine your team war point value. There are approx. 1500 points to allocate between all war participants and Health determines how many points your team receives)
When calculating the damage inflicted in battle, you must also consider Troops, Battle Items, and the opposition’s stats.
I haven’t been able to find a precise formula for the value of Attack, Defense, and Health, however, there is a general description in the Support section of Empires and Puzzles (in-game) that states:
‘The attack of a Hero is used as the base value for each hit done by the Troops aligned to the element of the Hero. The actual damage caused depends largely on the defense value of the opponent, but there are other variables at play as well.’
While the above information is all I need, I appreciate some readers may want more detail, or to learn in fact, what the in-game code is doing. To that end, I’ve found this post on the Empires and Puzzles forum, where SolemnWolf provides a case for a formula.
Related: Rainbow, Mono, Or 3-2? Color Stacking Explained
Hero Cards: Empires and Puzzles
Alas, we meet again, at the end of another epic post.
Understanding Hero Cards is important in Empires and Puzzles, if only so you don’t waste time on bad Heroes. Hopefully, this guide has shown you something you didn’t already know.
What are your thoughts? Did I get it wrong or miss something? Let me know in the comments below.
[Please always check in-game Hero Cards to confirm details and never chase Heroes]
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Thanks! Useful for newer players for sure. One small typo where you wrote “attach” instead of “attack.” Hope you get a lot of reads and keep writing!
Hey byzanthia, thanks for the catch. Some people do request these post and I write them in good faith. Whether or not it gets read… Thanks for the support though, I appreciate it.
A few possible additions to your excellent article:
1. Magnifying glass also displays the hero’s title (although I never understood why this was necessary but just perhaps it’s a little bonus if you pull the hero).
27. Team cost was initially created so that low level players who spent a ton of money acquiring powerful heroes could not dominate the game and so limited them as to the max they could use. At player level 30 you reach the max of 130 anyway so it is now virtually obsolete.
It also may be interesting to note that Health totals determines your team war point value and nothing else. There are apprx. 1500 points to allocate between all war participants and Health determines how many points your team receives.
Great job, very thorough
Hello David, thank you for providing feedback and for the additional information. I’ve added all of it to the article, naming you as the source for #27, if that’s OK?
At least that explains the 130 total team points. Also, the war info is great. Thanks again.
First I want to a BIG thanks for your posts. I look forward to reading them.
My question though relates to war…. You mentioned above that my team’s point value is determined by its health (I think this is right).
Do you have a post where you explain how war is decided. Things like matchmaking, team points (explained above) a teams position in the field… things like that, not how to play war.
Again, I really appreciate the time and effort you put into your posts, and get a chuckle out of each, as well as great information.
Hey Helen, sorry but I don’t go into further detail. It can be hard to source that sort of info and it’s definitely for more advanced players. I would check the forum or maybe if somebody has more info reading this, they’ll give us a heads up?
Thanks for reading and, Happy New Year!