Hero Tale - Ultimate Range Guide (2024)

Range Guide

By Dawidax.

This guide is intended for sub-20, max dark points. However, if you do not have that, it is still a great baseline to follow to help you get your timer down for future runs.

Intro

With that out of the way, I want to quickly cover some guidelines.

• While your hp/mp is not at 100%, your timer is counting. If you are not at 100% you need to be farming, it’s not an option.
• If you do happen to die and can heal up to 100% hp/mp, even though you are dead, the timer will stop.
• If you absolutely cannot heal and the timer will continue anyway, don’t just sit there dead. Use this time to go to a shop. Sell off, restock arrows, whatever you need to do at stores while you revive. The time is wasted, but we can still try to optimize on it.
• Early game, be casting heal every single time you can between searches for enemies. This will help boost our magic level a little, so heal will matter more in the early/mid-game.
• Money can get tough in the mid-game, so you may run out of arrows in between levels, but it is best practice to have at least enough arrows for 1 level at a time.

Perk Tree

And now, let’s dive into the guide! We will start off by sharing a couple of options for the perk tree. This first one is the one I used for the run. I won’t claim that it is any better or worse than the second, but I believe the first tree is good for early game, while the second is good for late game.

This was the first time I did a whole run with this tree, and while I did like it, I did suffer a little without mana regen and 20% spell CD you get from this tree.

The choice is yours. Just keep in mind if you go with the second tree over the tree I chose in my play through, things may be harder, and you may fall a little behind in the early game, whereas you may pull ahead and get a little further ahead in the late game.

Skill Tree

Click to enlarge…

This is the tree I used for my run. I tried to optimize it as much as possible so that you’re always getting exactly what you need to progress through enemies more valuable.

Don’t forget to also grab the power node just to the left of the character portrait in “Stage 1” of the skill tree.

Start

And finally, we’re ready to go. Spend your Dark Points as you’ve chosen, and spend whatever skill points you have available and kill the rats. This was my starting inventory for killing the rats. (Please note, I have the fairy gear but never once used them in the run, and they don’t have value for selling)

When I got to the town, I sold everything except for arrows and healing items. (Save blueberries and cookies for when you get thunder) Use the money you receive to buy the 1.2k bow from the shop and a couple of extra arrows. Once we have everything we need from the shop, complete the town quests.

Now that we are out of town, we’re going to go south one tile to “Small Lake” and west one tile to “Farmer’s hut”. Right after we kill the farmer with Stone arrows. we’re going to go south one more tile to “Pixie Wilderness” to kill Mushrooms with Ice Arrows. You will need 5 Mushrooms before we continue. After you have the 5, go west one tile to kill spiders at “Dense Forest” with ice arrows. The large spider is easier to kill than the small spider. Once we kill the 4 required enemies, go south one more tile and complete the druid’s quest.

Once we have finished with the Druid, we’re going to go east of the town entrance to “grasslands” and then move on to “waterfall” to kill bandits with more ice arrows. Kill the 4 required and go south to “Heath” to kill 4 more bandits while dodging Berserk Cultists. Try to save at least 15 of your Ice arrows at this point. Once you have spent your Ice arrows, go back to stone arrows for Bandit and Farmer. You can also choose to kill pirates at this time.

Once you’ve finished all of these steps, you’ll go back and forth between the farmer and the bandit. Collect food and heal up at the farmer, and then go kill the bandit. You’ll need to be casting Heal spell in between each kill and eat meat and carrots from the farmer to sustain bandit kills. When you run out, go back to the farmer and repeat. Also, note that I used a good portion of the healing pots we get from the start of the game to sustain bandits, but do not use them all. We need around 15 to kill the siblings.

Size Brothers

At level 16, I went to my fight with Jen. If you followed the Tiles I mentioned, you’ll have access to “Green Hinterland”. This is where you want to fight all of the siblings, otherwise you’ll be forced to fight 8 of them. I used the cool bolts to be able to kill her and needed to use a healing potion. When the fight was over, I just went back to the farmer to continue getting XP and to heal up for the next fight. Note: Ice arrows also work in killing Jen.

For Ken, I had to get one more level as he was giving me some trouble but same general idea: kill him, heal using the remainder of our potions during the fight and then go to the farmer to heal using meat after the fight.

For Ben, I used cool bolts once again. After the fight with Ben, we still need to kill 1 more enemy to get to the next tile. I choose to search for another Jen kill as she’s the easiest option.

Once we kill her, we can move on to the next tile to the east, “Wetland Border”. Here we also only have the option to kill bandits once again. Kill the 4 required and move on to Ezra’s Convoy.

City

Once you reach the end of path “2” on the skill tree, which is a Medium and small power node, you’ll be able to push into the city with Cool Bolts. For me, that was level 19. Start by killing the Lazy Guards.

Head east to “Downtown” to kill Sarmatian’s. Head south to again kill Lazy Guards, and then south once again.

Slums

I had to get a couple more levels on bandits to be able to push past the Sarmatian’s. By 22, I was able to clear the path and get to “Slums” to start killing Beggars. With bow and stone arrows. Skip the rebels for now. At this point in the game, I was about an hour into the run.

I chose to sit at Beggars for a little while. I wanted to save enough money to buy the “Long Bow” from the City shop and the “Silk Culottes” from Ezra. I ended up only buying the Long bow, finishing the king’s quest of killing rebels, and he gave me enough money for the culottes. The best square to complete the king’s quest is where we were just killing Beggars.

Shipyard and Chilly Path

Once we finish this quest, we can head South in the city to get to “Shipyard” To kill Bosun’s.

While we are killing Bosun’s, we also need to be at “Chilly path” killing Trolls. Keep in mind, we are going to be Chilly Path Trolls a lot for the next 40+ levels. They are the best available XP for quite a while. In the beginning, we will be using Cool Bolts, Long bow, Heal spell (in between kills) and Eel’s we get from Bosun. When we are about to die, we just leave Chilly path and go to our next best XP, which is currently Bosun. As time goes on, you can downgrade your arrows to Steel arrows (obtained at City Store) to kill Trolls.

Archer Cultists

For now, We continue that cycle until Level 38. I started getting a couple kills on Archer Cultists a level. We want to start killing them as soon as you can, so we increase our odds of getting her drop “Vine bow”. Once you get the Vine bow drop, you will continue to use “Long bow” for quite some time. We will also replace Bosun at the shipyard with the Archer from Woodfolk Circle, continuing to also farm Troll as much as you possibly can. If absolutely necessary, you can also fall back to the shipyard at this stage as well.

Guards Captain

We will, again, continue that cycle for quite some time, until you’re feeling confident enough to take on the Trainer. We will go East of the Castle a Tile to the “Training Grounds” and kill the swordsman there, avoiding the archer. For the Trainer fight, my preferred method is starting with Cool Bolts, and swapping to Boom Boom arrows at the end. Worst case, you use 2 Boom Boom arrows (Do not forget to swap from COOL BOLTS to boom boom. If you start BB, you will fail the quest and will have wasted the arrows) The alternative is to get a little bit higher of a level to kill him with Cool Bolts and swap boots during the fight to win. Good gear to help swap/win this fight with the second method can also be found at WoodFolk Circle.

I’d also like to note that if you have 2k coins, you can buy the first ranged training from him, and it will complete another quest for free XP, and the final thing you should do is go to Ezra’s Convoy, click the gate guard to complete the final quest and receive more free XP. It’s more valuable for you to grab this XP early, so if you can afford it, do it.

Thunder (and Push into Deamon Lands)

We’ve spent another hour completing everything we’ve just discussed, and now we’re high enough level to grab the thunder spell. At level 51, you have the mana to cast thunder. I like to use this to help push into the Deamon territory. We can cast thunder on something, finish it off with arrows, retreat back to Trolls or Woodfolk while we wait for the thunder to cool down and have cookies or blueberries eating so our mana is coming back. Once we’re able to cast thunder again, we go to whatever Tile and keep killing things this way until we reach the Deamon Market.

Deamon Market (Carapean Armor)

Once I reached the Deamon market, I opted to stop killing Trolls at this point to only focus on Woodfolk Circle to save up for the Carapean armor from the deamon market. At this point in the run, you should also be around stage 5 or 6 on the skill tree, so we can equip our new Cara armor and the vine bow we should have gotten from killing the Archer Cultist for a nice bonus in damage. Around this time, we will also move on from killing trolls entirely and just focus on Gremlin Brutes at “Gremlin Nest” and Woodfolk Circle if we need to retreat. We continue this cycle until we are ready for the Wealthy District.

Once we kill Brutes safely, we can move ahead a few tiles to kill Magic Adepts. We can’t consistently kill her as she always gets 145 damage onto us, but it’s still worth the gold and XP to try and kill a few of her per level before going back to Brutes. She can also drop MP potions for us to keep training our Thunder to mastery.

Wealthy District

This part of the game is very slow. We’re going to continue to just kill the best XP we possibly can until we reach a level for killing Mercenaries at the “Wealthy District”. For me, that was level 84, though my image shows 87 because I forgot to take a picture.

Shadow Temple (Necromancers Run from Skeletons)

And here we are, already at hour 7. In the past 2 hours and in the coming 2 hours is where I died a lot and wasted a lot of time. As long as you don’t test your luck too hard, you should start to get a better run time than I am getting for this guide. By 88, I was killing Necromancer semi-consistent and by the early 90s, I was killing her very consistently with Cool Bolts.

Now, not only does Necro pay for Cool bolts, it also allows you to save money for all the training from the captain. You may notice I haven’t bought any training yet, and that was also a mistake of mine. It is better to buy at least once before this point, but if you absolutely cannot afford it, it’s okay to wait until this point to start buying them. You’ll want to buy the 2k and 15k in both range and Melee, with range being first and waiting for melee until you’ve got the “Dual Talent” skill point.

As we kill Necro, we will get sword drops. These are really great to sell, but always save your first one. It’s really important to have for the future of the run. All duplicates after we can sell. Keep in mind that we also are trying to save up at least 250k, we need to buy the Range training for 100k, the Composite bow for 80k and if we can afford it, the goggles, though the goggles aren’t required, and I don’t use them in this run. It’s important to start using Steel arrows on Necro as soon as we can to save as much money as we can.

Coming in at 8 hours, we’re still just grinding Necro getting XP and trying to save our money.

Poison Spell (Beating Sensei)

Now, hopefully you have Thunder mastered before I do. But if you end up like me and can’t master it until after you get to necro, that’s okay. As soon as you have mastered it, you’re going to clear the path to Sensei, which is down in the swamp. You’re also going to go to the city and buy about 10 Major Health Potions. Set your “auto-consume” feature to 70%, set your thunder spell to Auto cast, and start the fight with Sensei. If you do die, it’s okay. Get a few more levels and try again. Do not keep reattempting too early, or you’ll just keep dying and wasting time like I did. After you do kill Sensei, retreat back to Necro, kill her while healing up and preparing to kill Sensei again. Once you have full health and your spells are ready, rinse and repeat. The final step is to kill the witch. I don’t have much to say about her, she is a very easy kill if you can kill sensei. I killed her immediately after the sensei fight without spells and no health. I also opted to go for fireball in this run to help with inventor. It’s not absolutely required but it will help you kill him at a slightly lower level.

Between hour 8 and hour 9, I was able to get and master the poison spell. Now we just need a few more levels and we can take on the Frost terror.

Frost Terror (Icy Premises)

For the Frost Terror kill, we will use vine bow, cool bolts, poison on auto. When he is about to land a hit on you, stun him so he can’t hit you. If he doesn’t die, you will not survive a hit, so you have to run. Get a few more levels and come back to try again. It’s okay if you do need to come back because you still need a higher level to kill the Inventor anyway.

Frost terror Fight:

Inventor

I killed him just barely at level 149 using Fireball, poison and thunder all on auto and auto-consumption for HP on 80%

Inventor Fight:

At the 11-hour mark, I continued to waste a ton of time. I kept dying and didn’t have a clear path in mind on how I was going to get to the compound bow and goggles. I decided to spend my 200k on the final melee and range training. I actually regret this, I wish I had saved 100k to gotowards the bow and goggles as I ended up not being able to afford the goggles this run.

Heretic Leader (Magical Circle)

Now we move on to the Heretic leader. I Used Chain Mail Helmet, Chest piece, Legs and Boots (Get them from city market) with the Vine bow and Cool bolts equipped at level 160. As soon as he enters the field, auto cast poison. Wait for him to nearly hit you and cast thunder to stun him and avoid his damage, the second time he’s going to hit you, you can either opt to switch to plate shield and enchanted sword, or just continue to tank the damage and fire arrows at him. Just be careful not to die, as I also wasted a lot of time and money dying with him here. I think the safer option is to switch to sword and shield and only buy 4 major health potions at a time so you aren’t dying and wasting resources.

Heretic Leader Fight:

Finally, with the strategy mentioned above, I was able to get the compound bow, which is our final upgrade for the run.

Now with just a few loose ends to tie up and inventory prepping to do, we’re ready for our final push to the boss room.

Suspicious Guard (Ooze Fields)

I forgot to take a screenshot of killing the Suspicious guard, but I did record the fight. I had the compound bow, cool bolts, and full carapean armor on. As well as Mail gear and enchanted sword in quick slots 1-6. I started the fight with poison on auto cast. When he is about to hit you, stun his damage. The second time he is going to hit you, swap your gear with the quick slots and poison him out for the rest of the fight. You’ll likely need to use auto cast heal and auto-consumption as well. Once you secure the kill, go back to necro to keep farming and heal back up. Rinse, repeat.

Suspicious Guard Fight:

Strange Guard (Castle Entry)

The Strange Guard is much easier. I was able to get 2 kills instead of 1 kill per attempt. I would start in our full range gear, poison on auto, stun his attack and kill him. On the second enemy, I would continue to use range, wait until he is about to hit me and swap to full tank gear to poison him out. I would then go back to Necro to heal up and prepare for the second round. Rinse, repeat.

Strange Guard Fight:

Prince (Main Hall)

As I mentioned at the beginning, I sadly am not under 12 hours this run. I have absolute faith that anyone that follows this guide and does not die as much as me will get sub-12 hours. Here I am, at exactly 12 hours, entering the throne room.

This image above is mostly accurate, though I did go farm necro until I had 25 major health potions. Alternatively you can farm Wealthy District for Major health pots, but I also wanted to get close to a level up while farming. You need everything in this image +at minimum 15 Major pots. (It won’t hurt to bring more unless you’re running out of time and want a specific end time, though 25 is the absolute minimum).

Prince Fight:

Prince Fight Without BB Arrows:

So here we are. The Prince fight. Please, read this carefully and even rewatch the video before you do this. You only get 1 chance, and then you have no more BB arrows, and you get to grind for another hour before you can kill him. No one wants that.

Before you enter the throne room, toggle poison and fireball to auto cast. You specifically want one (1) 650 heal in your quick bar, (Obtained from the tile just east of Necro) and your BB arrows in your quick select bar. When Prince has run 80% of the way to you, you’re going to swap to your BB arrows. Almost immediately after this, he’s going to start hitting you. You’re going to manually consume your 650 heal. At this point, 1 of 2 things will happen. He will die (Extremely likely) or you will run out of BB arrows. If you run out of BB arrows, you need to be ready to swap back to your other arrows (Very unlikely). And that’s it. Prince is dead. I personally did not have freeze mastered, and I opted to not use thunder at all. If you have freeze, Auto cast freeze at the start of the fight instead of auto-casting fireball. If you want to stun, you’re going to wait for him to start hitting you and stun him after you heal.

Now, It’s a very, very simple method. But it’s easy to panic in the moment, so again, please understand this well and watch the videos. I do not want you to get this far just to fail here.

The last thing I would like to mention for Prince is that I did get up to half my XP bar so that when I went into the dungeon immediately after, I got a level up. From here, we’re going to go through some dialogue and kill as many experiments as we can with the Steel arrows we brought with us. Our goal is to stack as many 650 heals as we can. (ideally 5+, as well as a minimum of 3 mana ectoplasm. If you are not short on time, you can always get more before you enter the dungeon) as well as have our 1.2k heals from ascension and our 25+ Major mana pots.

Final Boss (Creepy Underground)

Now it’s time for the final boss and again, PLEASE read carefully and watch the video. You didn’t come this far and work this hard to die here. Fully understand the fight before you enter this fight. The final boss is purely an endurance test. If you have knowledge and enough resources, you win. You’re going to start this fight by auto casting Poison (And freeze if you have it). While he has mana, you need to stay above 1500 HP. I waited until my mana was drained, and I had close to 1200 HP and used my first 1.2k heal to get full HP and MP back. You need to time this properly, as he fires a thunder spell in this time frame. If you are below 1500 hp, you WILL die. Shortly after this, he will fire a fireball at you for 200 damage, and you can wait until your HP is around 1000 to consume the second 1.2k heal. After this, you’re fairly safe. Turn on your auto-consumption to 70% for health, but keep in mind that the 650 heals will drain your mana. We want to set our mana auto consumption to 10%. Keep in mind that these are rough numbers, and it’s best to adjust consumption rates as needed for your own specific fight. It’s also at this point in the fight that you should only be using Heal spell and poison. When he has finished running to you, you’re going to swap to your full tank gear. Now it’s a balancing act. You simply have to manage your health, mana, and resources while you poison him out. The fight lasted about 5 minutes for me. When you get close to max HP, turn off your heal spell and auto-consume to preserve HP/MP and flip it back on as required. (Please note, I use Carapace chest armor. You DO NOT want to. Use Mail instead).

Edward Fight:

That’s it. Congratulations, you did great! (Or skill issue if you die). Here is my final run time, but I hope to see much better times from the rest of you!

I hope this was helpful to you!