[Guide] Team Composition & Formation Guide

[AyameNoop]

Before reading this guide, you should read Imonarch's guide on team formations and basic team building. This guide will expand further on what he has covered. Just to note: he uses a slightly different terminology from me; basically he lumps all damage dealing specialists into one category called DPS, while I split damage dealers into Nuke and DPS, also he lumps all support heroes into one category while I split it into buff/debuff depending on how the hero affects the game

Team Formations
Now that you have an idea of hero roles, lets move on to formations. The basic formation in heroes charge is the 2-2-1 formation, like the 4-4-2 in Soccer. Ironmonarch has covered formations so I'll only touch on it here.

What this formation means is that your team has
2 Backline Heroes
2 Mid line heroes
1 Front Line hero (better known as a tank)

Generally as a rule of thumb you do not want more than 2 tanks as well as more than 3 heroes in any one position. So be sure to spread out your team.

Hero Type:
Each hero will have a primary type based on what kind of damage they deal; either Physical or Magic. Some heroes are hybrid, and can do both a mix of physical and magic damage. Just because a hero is marked as Physical or Magic does not mean that they only deal one type of damage (though such heroes exist), but that is their primary damage type.

Generally you should group physical heroes into one team and Magic heros into another. That being said, most of the fun in Heroes charge comes from building hybrid teams that look odd at first, but somehow work well together. The key is to experiment.

Hero Roles
Each hero generally has a main role as well as many secondary roles that they offer. Generally the main role is seen as the hero's best contribution to the team and not necessarily what that hero is best at.

Durable
Heroes with this trait are able to survive and take large amounts of damage, either by having large HP pools or by having high dodge/lifesteal

DPS
Heros with this main trait are best known for dealing a high, stable, regular amount of damage

Nuke
A sub trait of DPS heroes that do damage in large irregular bursts, instead of steadily.

Buff
Heroes who provide and apply boosts to your team.

Debuff
Heroes who have skills that affect the enemy team negatively

Heal
Heroes who have the ability to heal themselves and others

AOE
Heroes who are focused on dealing damage to the enemy team as a whole

Crowd Control (CC)
Generally heroes who are known for good CC have skills that stun and immobilize the enemy team

Now that you understand how each hero in the formation has a primary role to fulfill. The basic distribution is:

1 Tank
2 Damage Dealers (either Nuke or DPS)
2 Buff/Debuff/CC

sometimes 1 Buff/Debuff/CC hero can be swapped for a 3rd Damage hero. Sometimes you may even choose to field 4 DPS heroes with a tank. As a rule of thumb, do not have more than 2 Buff/Debuff/CC heroes because you'll lose out in damage

Are you confused now?
Don't be. Just think of your team as having 2 "formations". One formation describes how many heroes you have in each part of the team (such as defence, midfield and attack in soccer) and the other formation shows how the heroes in your team fill each of the given roles (such as how many DPS heroes you have)

Roles of each hero
Now that you have a understanding of each of the hero roles. We'll go down to each individual hero. The hero's damage type will be listed first, followed by their primary and then any secondary roles in order from most to least.

Admiral (Hybrid, DPS, Durable, CC)
Arcane Sapper (Physical, DPS, Durable)
Bear Warrior (Physical, DPS, CC)
Brute (Physical DPS, Durable)
Chaplain (Hybrid, Heal, CC)
Cleric (Physical, Heal, Buff)
Cloud Walker (Physical, DPS)
Commando (Hybrid, Buff, AOE)
Death Knight (Hybrid, Heal, Durable, Buff)
Death Mage (Magic, Durable, AOE, CC)
Deathgore (Physical, Durable)
Depths Voice (Physical, Durable, CC)
Disease Bringer (Magic, Buff, CC)
Drunken Master (Physical, Durable, DPS, Debuff)
Ember Blade (DPS)
Emberstar (Magic, Nuke, AOE)
Fallen Dominion (Physical, DPS, Durable)
Ferryman (Magic, DPS, AOE)
Forest Guardian (Magic, AOE)
Frost Mage (Magic, Debuff, AOE)
Hidden Needle
Ice Mage (Magic, CC, AOE)
Imperial Executioner (Magic, CC, Nuke)
Iron Hoof (Physical, Buff, CC, Buff)
Lightning Elemental (Hybrid, Debuff, AOE)
Lightning Master (Magic, AOE, DPS)
Lightning Spirit (Magic, AOE, DPS)
Lunar Guardian (Hybrid, DPS, Buff, AOE)
Machinist (Magic, Nuke, DPS)
Master Mage (Magic, CC, Nuke)
Mountain (Hybrid, Durable, CC)
Mystic (Magic, Buff, Debuff, AOE)
Necromancer
Ninja Assassin
Old Curse (Magic, Nuke, AOE, CC)
Phoenix (Magic, AOE, DPS, Durable)
Pilot (Physical, DPS, AOE)
Poisoned One (Physical, DPS, Debuff)
Professional Killer (Physical, DPS, Durable)
Psychic Sword (Hybrid, CC, Buff)
Psychopath (Magic, Nuke, DPS)
Rifleman (Physical, DPS)
Savage One (Physical, Debuff)
Shadow Shaman (Magic, Debuff, Heal)
Shadowleaf (Physical, Buff, DPS, CC)
Shallows Keeper (Physical, Durable, CC, Debuff)
Silencer (Physical, Debuff, DPS)
Sniper (Physical, DPS, Nuke)
Soulhunter (Magic, Durable, Nuke)
Stormlord
Succubus (Magic, AOE, DPS)
Swordmaster (Physical, DPS, AOE)
Tusked Storm (Physical, Buff, DPS)
Vanguard Warrior (Physical, CC)
Vengeance Spirit (Physical, DPS, AOE, CC)
Wandering Spearman (Physical, DPS)
War Chief (Physical, Durable, Buff, DPS)
Warrior Monk (Magic, CC, AOE)
Wind Master (Hybrid, DPS, AOE)

*ps list is incomplete. Please help and comment

An Example of Team Building
Now that you have an idea of how many of each type of hero you have, lets see how the heroes can fit into a team

One of the teams with the most synergy is the cookie cutter physical team consisting of:
War Chief (Durable, Buff, DPS)
Vengeance Spirit (DPS, AOE, CC, Durable)
Shadowleaf (Buff, DPS, CC)
Lunar Guardian (DPS, Buff, AOE)
Commando (Buff, AOE)

Now lets see why this team is so good.
Formation: 2-2-1 (good distribution of heroes)

Team roles:
Warchief is the tank, he also provides a boost to lifesteal for the entire team. This synergies as the majority of the team's damage will be Physical.

Vengeance Spirit and Luna Guardian fill the DPS slots for the team. Both have strong AOE skills that allow them to hit back line enemies. Luna provides a buff that increases the Physical damage of the team and VS adds some CC ability with her Ultimate. vengeance Spirit can also tank with her high HP pool when Warchief is dead.

Commando provides a very useful buff as the majority of the team is Agility based.

Shadow leaf provides another physical damage buff as well as CC ability from her Silence.

so the team roles are
Tank (War Chief)
Damage (Vengeance Spirit, Luna Guardian and a bit of help from Shadowleaf)
Buff/CC (Shadow Leaf, Luna Guardian, Commando)

making a perfectly balanced team with great synergy!

But I don't have XX hero, what should I do?
Well using the template, you can switch around heroes who have the same role. For example, say you do not have Vengeance Spirit but have Old Curse. You can swap Old Curse into the team as your Damage; you will lose some synergy as Old Curse is a Magic based Hero but Old curse will also contribute to your team's CC ability with his Ulti and provide nuke damage.

Now that you understand hero roles, remember nothing beats experimenting and trying out new formations till you find one that works for you!

[budi.usman]

Thank you for this great guide
my first post after a long time after reading your thread

[Se7en Strife]

I would name another sub group besides dps and nuke, heroes like po, oc, Phoenix etc under damage over time

[AyameNoop]

I would name another sub group besides dps and nuke, heroes like po, oc, Phoenix etc under damage over time

Pure DOT heroes are quite rare, in any case most of them can squeeze into either DPS or Nuke type. PO is more of DPS because she does a steady amount of damage while OC does his in bursts, hence Nuke. Phoenix is also more DPS because most of his damage comes from his Ulti and that skill where he flies around the stage (cant remember which one atm)

[Se7en Strife]

Hmm ok, how about those heroes that messes up other heroes skills like Sapper, psychic sword, ninja, cloud walker etc?

Don't get me wrong, just helping to make ur guide better.

[AyameNoop]

Hmm ok, how about those heroes that messes up other heroes skills like Sapper, psychic sword, ninja, cloud walker etc?

Don't get me wrong, just helping to make ur guide better.

I put cloud walker as DPS because mainly his clones provide extra hits and damage, its really obvious when you try him in Phoenix Outland

I don't have enough data on Ninja.

I actually thought of a Bypass Frontline Category for heroes like AS and PS...maybe I'll revise it later. But for now keep it simple. This guide is also mainly for main team roles and AS fits the description as a DPS for me

[d3xter]

Really nice guide. Straight and simple

The basic information is given, I would really like to see the special capabilities of some of them taken into account, f.e. CW, AS to possibly avoid some ultimates, pilot to take advantage of his ultimate to save your group from some damage, commando to prevent some initial damage etc and how this might change the team composition or affect it.

[AyameNoop]

Really nice guide. Straight and simple

The basic information is given, I would really like to see the special capabilities of some of them taken into account, f.e. CW, AS to possibly avoid some ultimates, pilot to take advantage of his ultimate to save your group from some damage, commando to prevent some initial damage etc and how this might change the team composition or affect it.

idk that would probably require a 2 paragraph 500 word in dept analysis per hero, which I don't have the time to do

[d3xter]

would still be interesting though

but still great work!

[Urtock]

Really really nice thread

[vorawut]

Great Guide

[BadFerret]

Nice Guide. I just want to add one or two things (this maybe not be possible always, because you will unlikely have all heroes maxed at your Level). The easiest way to find out, if a team fits, is to test it. It's not that easy that you can say I need this type, this type times two and this one and you have a good arena team.

Also much depends on which range of teamlevel you are. Because with different levels there will be different skills (pre-purple, post-purple/pre-orange, post-orange) and different equipment (p - p+4, o).

[AyameNoop]

Nice Guide. I just want to add one or two things (this maybe not be possible always, because you will unlikely have all heroes maxed at your Level). The easiest way to find out, if a team fits, is to test it. It's not that easy that you can say I need this type, this type times two and this one and you have a good arena team.

Also much depends on which range of teamlevel you are. Because with different levels there will be different skills (pre-purple, post-purple/pre-orange, post-orange) and different equipment (p - p+4, o).

Dont forget that the best way to test is to attack booty caves and study the video and the stats charts after the battle

[BadFerret]

Dont forget that the best way to test is to attack booty caves and study the video and the stats charts after the battle

Yes, booty cave is the best way to test it, bc you have a big pool of enemies and you have lots of "fight stamina" aka bread

But I also like to use Grand Arena: you can thest 3 teams at once and choose which you want to fight against which (depends of your rank and how much is hidden). (But I only would suggest this when your (Grand)Arena rank is relatively solid).

[Brute]

Booty caves are not a great way to test teams because the enemy starts with 25% energy. This is why my vw led int team has only been beaten in 1 try a few times. The best way to test is to get into a good guild and duel each other.