Table of Contents
Free-to-play progression is pretty good in Warcraft Rumble, but you can make mistakes that will make it harder for yourself in the long run. So, let's start with the basics - Coins (in this guide, we will use the term gold interchangeably). Coins are the most significant resource available to you. It's the most challenging resource to obtain, and it's also the most important resource you'll spend.
How to Earn Coins
You can earn gold by completing the normal campaign - every time you complete a new campaign level, you'll be rewarded with gold. You can also earn gold for completing what are called 'Arclight Surges', which are special versions of the maps awarding you 60 Gold for every completion, or a little bit less if you haven't bought the booster.
Additionally, you get gold every time you complete a full row of Heroic bosses. Heroic bosses are harder versions of the original bosses, and you need to defeat them with a leader from every single faction, which rewards you with 300 gold per boss. So, you can earn a lot of gold when you start doing heroics, but trust me, that gold will disappear quickly if you don't know how to spend it wisely.
How to Spend Coins
When it comes to spending gold, there are a couple of main ways to do it, but it ultimately boils down to daily offers. Now, when spending your gold, do not - and I repeat, do not spend it anywhere else other than on the G.R.I.D., for the most part. There are some exceptions that I'll talk about later.
The G.R.I.D.
The G.R.I.D. is the only way you can access talents and upgrade the rarity of your units. Upgrading the rarity of your units is crucial because each level of rarity you unlock grants you access to a talent slot, and talents completely change how units are played. So, it's essential to prioritize spending gold on the G.R.I.D.
When you first start, the G.R.I.D. will also offer you opportunities to buy new units, and you should do that. Your priority should be to unlock every unit as quickly as possible because it increases your collection level, which we'll talk about a bit later. This, in turn, makes leveling up your units much more manageable.
The G.R.I.D. operates with rows that refresh every day. If you don't like what's currently on the G.R.I.D., you can wait 24 hours, and the top two rows will shift down, introducing a new row at the top. There are also big red buttons that entirely recycle the grid, bringing new items.
Refreshing the G.R.I.D.
You can buy something to refresh everything in a vertical or horizontal row adjacent to that unit. Each week, there will be a leader week corresponding to the week in the dungeon. This week offers access to leaders, which require more upgrades on the G.R.I.D..
You can rearrange items on the G.R.I.D. to optimize your setup, but I wouldn't recommend moving items around unless you have plenty of gold or are a pay-to-win player, as the gold cost adds up quickly.
Daily Offers
There might be certain circumstances where you see resources on when in the daily, there are certain offers you should pay special attention to, such as experience and the star level for leaders. Rare cores, epic cores, and legendary cores are also valuable. However, avoid spending gold on experience Tomes, as they are not worth the money. Experience can be obtained more easily through grinding in the game.
Later on, you might consider buying AR energy, but for most players progressing through the game normally, AR light energy won't be necessary. As for spending your gold, the primary focus should be on the grid. You should use it to unlock units and increase their rarity levels.
Raising Unit Levels
To raise a units' rarity level, you need to acquire three stars, which costs 270 gold for each unit. Most of the stars you need will come from the grid, unless you're using real money or gaining unlocks from the campaign, PvP, or Guild rewards.
Gaining XP
Now, let's discuss gaining XP and leveling up specific units. You'll naturally earn experience from PvE missions, general gameplay, and quests. Quests offer two units currently in your deck and one random unit. The quest options generally align with your active deck when the quests refresh. For example, if you're using a Tyrion deck, the quest options will feature units from that deck.
Quests
You can complete up to 20 quests per day. Sometimes you'll receive a three times bonus quest, and if you're lucky, you'll get a five times bonus quest. These quests do not need to be completed all in one day; they will stack up to a maximum allowance of 300.
Collection
My general advice would be to unlock all of the units as quickly as you can to get your collection level up. Your collection level increases your new unit bonus, the amount you get from quests, and so on. So, you want to focus on getting as many units into your collection as possible rather than focusing on the units you think are good. Once you have all those units in your collection or as many as you can, you can start looking at units and leaders you want to focus on.
Heroics
You also get experience for doing heroics. Every time you complete a boss on heroic, you'll receive an experience tome for the faction you completed it with. There's an absolute boatload of experience to be earned there.
PvP
Another effective method for gaining experience is through PvP, which proves to be quite generous in its experience rewards. Winning a PvP battle yields a substantial amount of experience, making it an excellent option for those looking to grind for more XP.
Here's a helpful tip: If you play as a hero with zero honor, you'll primarily face off against bots in the early stages of PVP until you reach around 1,000 to 2,000 honor. This presents an opportunity to accumulate a considerable amount of experience by battling bots during these initial PvP levels. I strongly recommend taking advantage of this opportunity and participating in PvP battles with as many heroes as possible to benefit from the free experience it offers.
What's particularly appealing about PvP is its generosity in awarding experience for winning matches. After a successful PvP match, you'll always receive experience for a unit currently in your deck. Although the specific unit may vary, this system encourages players to engage in PvP, making it an enticing feature.
In PvP, your total honor is calculated based on the top three honors of your best leaders combined. As you progress in PVP, you'll receive rewards that are quite generous, which adds to the motivation to participate, despite any initial intimidation.
PvP features a level capping system as you advance in honor. From 0 to 1,000 honor, all your levels are capped at one. From 1,000 to 2,000 honor, the levels are capped at three, and from 2,000 to 3,000 honor, they are capped at five. This system generously facilitates your journey to reach the 3,000 honor mark, a milestone that many players should achieve within their first few weeks of playing the game.
Beyond 3,000 honor, there is no level cap, and it operates according to the PVP level matching system, which considers your unit level divided by three, rounded up to determine your overall unit level. Once your units reach approximately level seven, you should be well-equipped to compete with most players beyond the 3,000 honor threshold.
Progression
So far, we've covered spending your gold in the right places, unit experience, some discussions around the dungeons, PvE, and PvP. In PvE, I recommend pushing PvE progression as hard as you can and completing heroics as quickly as possible.
You'll find that you'll start to struggle in PvE, and it mainly comes down to unit levels, which is perfectly normal. It's the game's way of encouraging you to spend, but if you don't want to spend, you don't have to. You can grind levels and wait it out by doing quests and PVP and then try to find the best possible tactics to fight upwards.
As soon as you get access to heroics, you should do them; it will massively boost the experience you get for your units.
Dungeons
A bit about Dungeons: Every week, there will be a dungeon for each of the five factions: Alliance, Horde, Undead, Beast, and Black Rock. There are four dungeons, and over five weeks, the dungeons rotate between all of the factions. Every week, you have the opportunity to grind the dungeon for the heroes you have.
Winning a dungeon will grant you extra upgrade slots. If you complete a dungeon level, it will grant you a slightly harder version of the dungeon at a higher level unless the dungeon is significantly below the average level of your current deck.
Recommended Minis and Leaders
In terms of leaders and units to focus on, Tyrion, Hogger, and Baron are all fantastic leaders. For units, Defias Bandits, S.A.F.E Pilot, Blizzard, Huntress, and Stonehoof are quite good. You can view the minis and leader Tier list here.
Here you have it, Gold Management 101: A Comprehensive Warcraft Rumble Guide.
