Arcana Tactics by Gamevil is a unique type of strategy RPG game blending itself with genres like gacha and auto-battler. The most challenging aspect of the game lies in the fact that you, as a player, do not have control over what you can pick in terms of heroes. The only control the player has on the battlefield is his Arcana cards and his knowledge of the game. Sounds confusing and challenging, right? Well, we are here to give you the best headstart possible and ensure a smooth transition towards the mid-late game in Arcana Tactics with this beginner’s guide.

This beginner’s guide will be divided into 2 parts:

1. Rerolling Guide with Arcana Tier List
2. Battle Tips and Strategies for Beginners

Rerolling Guide 

Rerolling is an essential part of games like these where strong headstart matters and can set you up for a smooth journey throughout the game. In Arcana Tactics, we recommend rerolling for Arcana cards and not heroes because you will summon heroes anyways using the free currency provided by the game by completing different missions, challenges, and events. However, Arcana cards can only be summoned by the paid currency or by Arcana summon tickets that can be obtained rarely by the dev team, events, or login bonuses. Hence, it’s wiser to reroll for Arcana cards as they are rarer and harder to obtain than heroes. Also, summoning for a single copy of the hero, even if it’s of the highest rarity (5-Star) is not worth it since it’s only going to be at Level 1. To increase the hero’s level further, you would need to summon multiple copies of the same hero to gather its fragments.

You can unlock the summon Arcana feature after clearing the first 2 chapters of the Story mode. The first summons will always be a guaranteed 5-star Arcana as part of the tutorial. Obtain the Arcana summon tickets from your in-game mailbox. You may have to watch an ad to continue summoning for Arcana. This is also part of the game to monetize the f2p players. You can summon Arcana 2 times a day by watching ads for free. For your first 5-star Arcana card, we recommend the following Arcanas:-

1. Devil Arcana – Increases Critical Damage of all heroes
2. Judgment Arcana – Increases HP of all heroes
3. World Arcana – Increases Attack Speed of all heroes
4. The Fool Arcana – Increases Critical Rate of all heroes
5. Justice Arcana – Increase Dodge rate of all heroes
6. The Tower Arcana – Increase Physical and Magical Defense of front row heroes

These are the top-tier Arcanas available to players from the tutorial summon. We recommend these Arcanas if you’re choosing to reroll. The reason these Arcanas are recommended is that they affect all the heroes on the battlefield and not just the specific class or type of heroes.

These Arcana cards will boost all your heroes no matter which you summon and will continue to provide a consistent boost till the end game. However, if you are not concerned with the best reroll, other good 5-star Arcana that can be acceptable includes the following:-

1. Strength Arcana – Increases guard rate by 20/30/45% for swordsman against basic hits according to number of swordsmen (2/4/6)
2. Hermit Arcana – Reduces the damage received for all heroes
3. Wheel of Fortune Arcana – Activates when 2/4/6 archers are active on the battlefield. Increased Physical attack for archers by 30/40/80%
4. The Sun Arcana – Activates when 2/4/6 warriors are active on the battlefield. Increased chance to activate unbending will by 40/65/100%
5. The Hanged Man Arcana – Activates when 2/4 rogue is active on the battlefield. Increase chances to activate the backstep effect of rogue heroes by 55/80%
6. The Star Arcana – Increases Physical and Magical attack of all backline heroes by 25%
7. The Death Arcana – Increases Damage dealt to monsters by 20% for all heroes.                            

Battle Tips and Strategies 

The Battle mechanics for Arcana Tactics are very challenging and require player attention during the whole combat. In the campaign mode, there are multiple stages. Each stage is divided into multiple rounds, usually ranging from 10-13 with the last 2-3 rounds marked as Boss rounds. Boss rounds are much more powerful rounds with Boss monsters with high stats. They are marked with a Skull sign indicating the next round is going to be a Boss round. Players have 1 minute (60 seconds) preparation time before each round. 

For heroes and hero fusions, let’s start with the basics. There are 8 main basic 1 star heroes which can be acquired at the beginning of each round. These are the following heroes:-

1. Swordsman
2. Archer
3. Rogue
4. Wizard
5. Cleric
6. Warrior
7. Lancer
8. Spirit

These 1-star heroes are fused with other 1 star heroes to make higher tier heroes, i.e. 2-star heroes. 2 copies of 2-Star heroes are then required to make 3-star heroes. This chain can be continued till the highest tier hero is fused, i.e. 5-star hero. However, every class and hero has its fusion chain and cannot be fused with everyone. For example, 2-star hero Chaser can only be obtained by fusing 1-star heroes Archer and Rogue. You can check out all the fusion recipes and the number of heroes required to get that specific hero by using the in-game Fusion Index. This index is available both in-game as well as Hero Tab. This tab is located at the bottom left corner of the menu.

The most notable exception to fusing is that you cannot fuse heroes that you do not own. By owning, we mean summoned obviously. This is where the gacha and hero collector aspect of the game kicks in. Arcana Tactics is mostly strategy-driven but players who spend still have a little advantage as they most likely will own most heroes and can carry out more fusions. The Arcana summons is also gated by a paywall currency which is disheartening but the game is generous enough in the start to provide players with Arcana summon tickets.

Gems and Cubes

Gems and Cubes are the 2 main currencies in battle. Gems let you purchase heroes and cubes let you do all kinds of activities. Min/maxing these 2 currencies and using them to execute your fusions in the given time is the key to winning battles. You get a set number of both of these currencies after clearing waves and at the start of each round. Gems are very easy and straightforward to use. They are mainly used only for purchasing heroes. The heroes available to you are at random. You cannot select what you want unless using a select hero summon scroll which is rewarded after waves or can be purchased in the cube shop for 3 cubes. Gems can also be used to refresh the hero availability page but we don’t recommend it as you are playing into RNG. Cubes are mainly used for expanding the battlefield so you can deploy more heroes. More heroes mean more DPS and power. However, quantity is not always better than quality. So choose your poison carefully.

Play Arcana Tactics on PC

Play Arcana Tactics on PC

In the top left corner, all the currencies like gems and cubes are available for you to see. This corner also shows hearts. Hearts can be considered as your HP points in RPG games. You will lose these hearts if your party gets defeated by an enemy wave. The number of heroes deployed can also be seen. 

Team Building Approaches

A Balanced Party approach is key to winning or sustaining through these battles. In the beginning stages of story mode, the game may seem fairly easy but as you approach the mid-game you will start losing your hair if you do not have a balanced or specialized party. By Balanced Party we mean to have heroes which can fill all roles. A single hero cannot do that. Arcana Tactics is a strategic time-bound game where you have to make split-second decisions as you only have 60 seconds to prepare to defeat the next wave. You cannot put together any team and consider it to be strong enough to defeat the enemies. Every hero has their specific role. Some heroes are good at dealing massive damage to monsters and some are good at healing. Some heroes are excellent in taking damage and should be put on the front line.

By combining all types of heroes who are useful in their role, you can create a balanced team that will help in clearing content. We recommend having at least one healer, one damage dealer, and one frontline defensive tank to soak damage.

A Specific Class Approach relies on deploying heroes of the same class while using Arcana which boosts the stats of that same class. For example, if you obtained The Sun Arcana while rerolling and decided to keep that reroll, you may want to consider building an all swordsman team. Granted that RNG is always RNG and not always swordsman can appear at the beginning of the battle but you use other arcanas like low minor arcana which give 15% chance to give swordsman at the end of the battle. All in all, this approach is highly risky but almost guarantees a win if executed. 

Understanding the Hero Combinations

Understanding the hero combinations is going to help you not only strategizing better but also saving a lot of time. It will save your time of going to see the Fusion Index every time if you already know which heroes are required to fuse which hero. The highest rarity heroes, i.e. 5 –star heroes are the ones that are essential to fuse to compete with the difficulty at the higher stages in the campaign.

The game does a good job in giving out hints and heroes which are essential to beat the certain story stage; however, that does not mean getting those heroes will guarantee a win. You will need 5-star heroes and multiple of them in your party to defeat the stages at hard difficulties.

Let’s see how fusing heroes works and what it takes to get a 5-star hero. For this example, we are going to look at the 5-star hero Swordsman.

Swordsman requires: – 4 Star Blade Singer and 4 Star Royal Guard

• 4 Star Blade Singer requires: – 3 Star Highlander and 3 Star Rune Knight
• 4 Star Royal Guard requires: – 3 Star Highlander and 3 Star Defender
• 3 Star Highlander requires: – 2 Star Spell Sword and 2 Star Blacksmith 
• 3 Star Rune Knight requires: – 2 Star Spell Sword and 2 Star Paladin
• 3 Star Defender requires: – 2 Star Barbarian and 2 Star Paladin
• 2 Star Spell Sword requires: – Swordsman and Lancer
• 2 Star Blacksmith requires: – Lancer and Spirit
• 2 Star Paladin requires: – 2 Swordsman together
• 2 Star Barbarian requires: – 2 Warrior together

Increasing Resonance Level

Resonance level relates to your overall hero levels. The more you level up your heroes, the higher the resonance level will increase. The Higher the resonance level, the more stats and boosts it will apply to your party and heroes. For example, at Resonance levels 180 and 190, your heroes Physical and Magical attacks are increased by 30 each.

The Hero levels can be increased by getting their respective soul stones. Soul stones can be obtained by either summoning or through story mode farming. Keep in mind that soul stones from story mode are dropped at random and cannot be targeted for specific heroes.

That is all from our side for this beginner guide for Arcana Tactics. The game is still very fresh in the global community, being only a week old and hence, a lot of strategies and tips still need to be discovered. Joining a community dedicated to Arcana Tactics will also help to understand the game better and boost your confidence to carry out tough fusions like a piece of cake! Drop any questions below and we will do our best to get back to you!