Dragonheir: Better than Before

[Part of the Cursed story line.] 

With the holy river restored its time to destroy the source of the corruption down here in the Underdark which leads through many team based fights that need much swapping of line ups and many attempts before I manage to get through to the corrupted boss, an big ugly drider mama (level 165) who enjoys summoning adds. Fortunately the trick with her is rather easy, just turn off auto combat and make sure to use the ultimates on the adds before they get too overwhelming! The winning team was Fire Main / Garius / Voresh / Heksandra / Sigrid. Yes, I finally got the blonde archer on my roster and she is a freaking powerhouse if paired with a debuffer like Voresh who debuffs everything as her ultimate hits ALL debuffed enemies, and prevents them from healing!

It turns out destroying this creature is the last step in restoring my memories - I am also a child of Tiamat! Aka The child of chaos who tried to kill her so long ago but failed so she ripped my soul into two pieces (and the reason why this belongs in my "Cursed" journal). Obviously the next step is to reclaim my other half from the death lands but he isn't very happy to see me. To my great surprise this level 170 boss is the FINAL one (you mean there's an end!? yep!) and his phase two is not easy at all since he has a move that captures one of your team mates and if you don't destroy the hand before time runs out its insta-kill time for that person!

It takes me a few goes before eventually finding the winning team (but that's ok because he has some pretty nice boss music) of Fire MC / Horrus / Heksandra / Sigrid / Journ, all fire based heroes to get the "inspirational" damage bonus which is required for this boss. In addition, Journ - the legendary gnome inflicted with crystal disease, also debuffs with his AoE flamethrower and ultimate mine field abilities. Upon completing myself (and the game really), I run into Tiamat who this time - lets me go to continue adventures since "I've changed". The end! I know there's a season two coming / available but I just felt this was such a decent and unexpected end to this story so I'm stopping here. Thumbs up Dragonheir! You turned out to be a much better game than I originally thought you'd be.

One last arena flex because I doubt I'll reach this rank again. Big step from 15+k!

Dragonheir: Elemental 100

[Part of the Cursed story line.] 

I failed to mention last time that there's a new camp mechanic where you can send up to three heroes for training, and they just gain XP per second which certainly helps in the grinding. You still need to grind for the materials to unlock higher levels though, and since the underground enemies are starting to get really tough I decided its time to farm for those big crystals in the three elemental zones - the level 100 version of them to at least gain 1 of the big elemental crystals per run (but supplementing with little ones at a 10:1 ratio).

Frost Lady Glacia (100) is easily handled by Fire main (100 back) / Heksandra (90 back) / Garius (90 mid) / Horrus (90 front) / and Eli (83 back). The double heals from Heksandra and Garius plus Horrus taunt and damage reduction are pretty good, and ranger Eli is an ok damage dealer but probably needs to be switched out for a better substitute at some point. The Lightning Dragon (100) I can handle with Fire main (100 back) / Voresh (90 back) / Ripekas (90 back) / Horrus (90 front) / Lucien (90 front). Lucien (the legendary elf) is not a strong a tank as Horrus or Garius, but his abilities to start everyone with a shield and freezing flank are pretty handy.

She seems like something that came from Elden Ring.

That just leaves the Lady of Flame (100) and honestly, I didn't have a team that could beat her reliably until I maxed out Garius (100). With him backed by Voresh (90) / Zhar'loth (90) / Ripekas (90) / Lucien (90) I could finally make some headway here. If you are wondering why you'd want to level up more than just your main party, this section of the quest answers that by introducing TEAM battles. Much like the team arena, I now need to send more than one squad into each battle and heroes can't be deployed more than once - and if one team fails their fight, your entire squad fails!

Since this zone is asking for two squads my line ups are Fire main (100)/ Zhar'loth (97) / Voresh (96) / Garius (100)/ Lucien (90) and Horrus (90) / Ripekas (99) / Sutha (95) / Heksandra (90) / Usha (90). Sutha the legendary orc berserker hits decently hard and fast, but she's nowhere as tanky as she looks. However, since I got a duplicate Sutha I wanted to try her out. You see, when you pull duplicate heroes of the lower tiers you just get some item refinement currency instead but for a duplicate legendary hero, they get a boost which seems to improve them by 8% each time (up to five times if you get that many duplicates). Alternatively, you can use dupes to buy legendary rank artifacts from the shop!

Dragonheir: Season of Darkness

[Part of the Cursed story line.] 

A new "season" update has showered gifts on players with something like 100+ hero dice which net me a few more legendary ranked heroes who I immediately take my new superstars to the arena and... still get thrashed because obviously I'm not great at team composition LOL. Now also available to me is the "champion arena" which is more PvP that the other arenas where you just face preset teams of other players but don't really interact with them in any way. In the champion arena mode which opens only every few hours, you are head to head in picking your line up for battle. Again, I got thrashed there too. :P

For the new arena, you start at rank 15K+ but most of the opponents are just
NPC squads until around the 200 mark.

At least I make progress against the orc invasion, basically stopping it in its tracks and then defeating the obviously evil high mage who orchestrated everything and turns into a purple dragon (that's new to me)! He's a son of Tiamat so he's kinda strong and my lev 100 fire main actually has to tank while back row Garius (90) / Ripekas (90) / Zhar'loth (90) / and Voresh (90) clinch the win. With his defeat this boss has also turned into another available weekly challenge pinata.

The adventure then leads to what I suppose is the Underdark, where we find the isolated city of Terminus inhabited by rot stricken deep elves and one of their number offers to accompany us back to the main city (breaking quarantine) via the long route - the first section of which is most exciting as it involves an undying spider that continuously pursues you once you reach its territory. You can beat it up, but it gets up after 10 seconds and the chase is on again! Ironically we ultimately escape by sending the spider falling down a deep chasm, because spiders aren't good at falling or climbing? Erm...

Dragonheir: Mt. Trollabar

[Part of the Cursed story line.]

I too am surprised that I'm still here, as the story has had some interesting turns wherein I've been betrayed by hot Countess Catherine (who is a OK healer if she's in the party) but also gotten lucky with some hero dice to get Gitouna the dwarf crafter knifer who hits fast and Voresh the ice lich who has a wicked AoE, though it takes time to load up. I've also been loaned the female dual wielding knight Usha to get through a particular place and those three along with Garius and my fire main are my current party.

While smashing through some trolls I've come across the "second" daily type mission which involves fighting a Poseidon type ocean giant and is pretty cool. The "first" daily is harder to find, fighting some sort of death knight through a portal. You also get two garbage tasks daily which are easy and help get you more hero dice and there's also a ranked arena to fight other players parties which is just kicking my rear at the moment so I'm leaving that alone.

Voresh taking on Poseidon Malinus.

Oh, remember how we need specific elemental crystals to level up heroes? It gets worse when you hit the next tiers as the place that drops them makes it much worse for heroes of that element to be there. For example, if I send my fire themed heroes into the fire realm, they do 30% less damage and take 60% more damage meaning you shouldn't send your fire heroes in there. But but but... yep. That means you have to level up AT LEAST THREE TEAMS to be able to farm through each of the three elemental zones! Drow archer Adrie who slows down the bosses from using their ultimates is pretty handy here, but in the case that you can't or don't want to fight the high level variants you can just grind the easier ones and fuse the 2-3 low level crystals you get per run into a higher tier at the ratio of 10 lessers:1 greater. Waaaaaah!