Idle Champions is an incremental strategy live-event free to play game with the “flavour” of Fantasy with Dungeons and Dragons. This is not your usual clicker game and it isn’t a fast paced one at first at least. If you like D&D, the “flavour” of this game is packed with your favourite champions (Heroes) which we have all come to know and love throughout the media of the Forgotten Realms franchise.

If you like incremental games, you are there for gameplay and know most of what I will talk about below and if you like a thinking game (strategy) but don’t want to rush and get screamed at by some AI avatar like most modern games are these days, then this is the game for you.

That being all said, the first few missions and I would say week is slow and this is built up to the fact you also know absolutely nothing going into it. Part of the fun though right?

This guide are for both players who have not clicked install yet but also for those new players who are fresh out of “Dwarven Road College” (this is what I call the tutorial) and even if you have been playing for a couple of months and want to know all what this game has to offer (well, as in features currently).

So, without further a-do let’s get right into the Onion.

What is the Onion?

An onion is a swollen edible bulb used as a vegetable, having a pungent taste and smell and composed of several concentric layers.

Wait.

I am kidding! The Onion is what I use in all games I play, where you “Peel” back each layer (often crying sometimes due to the difficulty – if it’s DarkSouls!) and learn each one before moving onto the next. This game I went through the motions as always and the below are the “layers” of the Forgotten Realms. Hopefully, this helps you understand the mechanics of the game as it does with myself.

Layer 1 – Rags to Riches

How to Earn Gold?

Gold is immediately earnt each time you kill a mob (that’s an enemy) and is the fundamental mechanic of the game but only each adventure. Gold is only useful to unlock champions, level up your champions and to generally use that adventure. The main reason for gold is your end value which is then converted into Divine Favour (or just Favour). You can do all types of shenanigans to gain more Gold to earn more Favour but the fundamental point of this layer is that you have to earn gold to progress in that adventure and beyond, eternally.

You level up your champions by clicking the Green Button of any champion which highlights this. (Firstly, I would change the x1 to UPG which is directly above your click damage when you start the adventure) However, it isn’t about always clicking to upgrade your champions, sometimes you will want to conserve your gold in order to only upgrade a certain champion (typically your DPS) or to get to specialisations. This is getting into formations although where other guides can help you there.

To reset, you go to the “refresh” icon on the top bar below your DPS Breakdown.

This will be your main function in the game, to progress further. Whether you will be resetting after completing a requirement (thus completing an objective and an adventure) or to gain more favour in order to try again and hopefully complete the next. Restarting an adventure doesn’t “cost” anything but things you will easily gain back (and more) with more favour – these are your gold, your champion levels and upgrades and, of course, the area/level you were on that adventure.

To Progress!

Layer 2 – #Blessed

Divine Favour

Favour is the basis of your Power in the Realms and you will need favour to complete further challenges (adventures) and/or variants. Essentially favour is used to easily earn more gold using “gold find” as its percentage. The higher your favour, the higher that percentage and ultimately the higher your progress. That’s “at first”.

The common advice out there is to push in all “freeplay” missions (those are the story adventures) to your “wall” (that is where you just cannot get past that particular level) and then reset in which if you completed the adventure, you move to the next story mission or if you didn’t you are trying again the same story mission with better odds for you (or “in your favour” – oh the puns).

Simply, kills = gold = favour = reset = more kills = more gold = gold find increase = more favour and repeat.

It gets more complicated the further you go on and favour is the first “currency” which stays there forever unless you “spend” it and you will spend it on Blessings. I will get to Blessings, but first, let’s get free loot!

Layer 3 – R2D2 of Codes

“What are Combinations” are well documented in my list of Combinations. I would advise grabbing these before moving forward starting with the “Previous Weekly Codes” first, then moving onto the “Active Weekly Codes” before then moving down the list to Long-Deadline, Unknown and Limitless codename lists. This provides you with valuable gear in which will be explained later on this guide.

All links are below:

1. Welcome – [steamcommunity.com]

2. Chest Codes General Information – [steamcommunity.com]

3. Abbreviations & Source Links – [steamcommunity.com]

4. How Can I Help? – [steamcommunity.com]

5. Active Codes Weekly (Link) – [steamcommunity.com]

6. List of Long-Deadline Codes – [steamcommunity.com]

6.1 Limitless Codenames – [steamcommunity.com]

7. Previous Week Codes (Expiring Soon) – [steamcommunity.com]

8. Expired Codes – [steamcommunity.com]

9. Unknown Deadline Codes List – [steamcommunity.com]

Layer 4 – Sacrifice At The Altar

So you understand the concept of Gold, Favour and have got those sweet sweet loot chests through combinations codes and you are saying “what’s next?”

Well, Blessings are next and this will further increase your power so you can get through those slightly harder missions and variants.

What are Blessings?

The Blessing menu can be found under “the sun” (Head Stereo: Korpikklaani – Under The Sun) icon next to the chest icon on the top bar or by pressing “B” on your keyboard.

Blessings are an extra layer of powerful upgrades which can increase certain things to your formation or gameplay either “locally” or “globally”. To gain blessings you must spend your hard earnt Divine Favour, so be careful and choose carefully as you do lose some favour if you reset your blessings.

Local Blessings are upgrades to that particular campaign whilst Global Blessings are upgrades which apply to all campaigns and events/timegates etc. It is advised to leave the “Warning” checkbox ticked and to spend up and until it warns you about your spending. Basically, anything less than 1% expenditure of your Favour is commonly used as a guide.

There are different ways to pick up these, however a few to work towards are:

Torm (Swords Campaign) – Gem Hunter & Start Strong

Kelemvor (ToA Campaign) – Temporary Worship & Golden Luck

Helm (Watersdeep) – Slow & Steady

Arguably after this you will know what you are doing, however, Avernus and Icewindale Campaigns offer more blessings. The former has an absolute diamond (and it’s way down the line if you are new) of a Blessing and that is “Veterans of Avernus”.

It is advised to, when you can, get all the first tier blessings of a campaign first as you are moving through and then go for whichever Blessings you think will benefit you the most. Obviously, “Gem Hunter” is a no brainer but you might want to wait until pushing for “Start Strong” for instance. However, getting all of these will help you gain more power and thus get you to complete more adventures and variants.

Layer 5 – We All Need A Hero Just For One Day

So for awhile now you have had these champions travelling around with you and these are probably your Core Champions (those are the first 12 champions you get), possibly a few Evergreens (those are the champions you get through the campaigns) and maybe even some Event Champions.

Champions are very important in the Realms and they shouldn’t be Forgotten about (oh dear), as these are your only way (by the end) to complete some adventures and those nasty variants (I am looking at you “Are Ya Chicken?”).

As explained above you have three sets of Champions, the first two are always there for every player to get whilst the last set (The Event Champions) are time related. You also have another set of champions nowadays which the community calls “TimeGate Champions”, I though call them “Forgotten Champions” as I like puns and am firmly against the move CNE did (yeah still). However, we are where we are.

Just to Note: ALL CHAMPIONS ARE ABLE TO BE UNLOCKED FOR FREE (currently)

Evergreen Champions

As mentioned above Evergreens are unlockable by signing up to the newsletter, various missions or variants within the main campaigns. They are currently:

Azaka – Tomb of Annihilation

Dragonbait – Tomb of Annihilation

Drizzt – The Grand Tour of Swords Coast

Hitch – Newsletter Registration

Ulkoria – Waterdeep

Reya – Descent into Avernus

Note: The Newsletter will give you emails per week after registration of the unique code to a weekend chest. So it is actually worth it.

TimeGate Champions

These champions used to be from the Events (more on that below) but are now retired from those Events and are able to be unlocked through TimeGates. Currently, only the recent three champions are still in the events whilst any older retire. Everything is still “free” except timegates are shorter events for a particular champion, either for unlocking or indeed gear for that champion. These TimeGates are played by either unlocking them with 6 time-pieces or by Natural TimeGates which open every 3 weeks or so. The time-pieces are random loot drops every boss (every 3 to 5 days) or by buying them with Patron Currency limited to one per week per Patron.

Layer 6 – Seventeen Events & A Copious Amount of Adventurers

Events are an in game feature in order to unlock more champions, and at first relatively quickly as all three recent Event Champions for that particular event are up for grabs.

Firstly, an Event is every 3 weeks in a CNE Idle Champions Calendar year. This means you will have 17 new champions per year with 51 champions being in events each year. Hopefully the maths were done correctly there! So roughly, you will be able to get 4 or 5 “new” champions per Month to your roster.

Secondly, Events are named festivals in the lore of D and D, which are the same each year in a close proximity to where they were the year before. Each named Event has a different deity associated with them and Tokens to collect during the event.

Lastly, Event Tokens are timed drops of any killed mobs in the game as you play. I believe it is currently every 22 seconds and is on their server time. So you cannot speed this process up. Sometimes, if you haven’t killed for awhile (an enemy), it will catch up for you when you do start again. So don’t worry, the amount of Event Tokens you receive is set in stone every Event and is usually around 46k Tokens (again maths!).

However, you can (and should) maximise these totals by using Bounty Contracts (Bounties) during events. Bounties drop a varying amount of time events depending on their rarity the amounts for one are below:

Tiny Bounty Contracts = 12 tokens

Small Bounty Contracts = 72 tokens

Medium Bounty Contracts = 576 tokens

Large Bounty Contracts = 1152 tokens

The general advice here is to unlock at least each champion you can unlock in that particular event (3 total) and then to evenly equip the event champions at least to Blue gear. This is made easier by the Electrum Chest now given as a free code each livestream. (see “Combinations”)

Event Achievements

Don’t worry too much about these at first, as each of these except the event specific “reach x level” are all able to get away from the event. However, it is easier to work through the champion’s variants in an event than through TimeGates.

Also, to note, the retired timegate champions specific “reach x level” is given when you reach 175 for the first time along with the new champion for this year (Year 4), every other event thereafter, you will just get the achievement for that retired champion and their Variant Achievement can be done by doing TimeGates.

Further Reading or Watching

As always a few recommended reading or watching:

Gaar’s Event Planning Guide – [reddit.com]

Layer 7 – The Grand Strategy of Chess

Formations are another layer of the onion and really come into play after you hit the further adventures and variants. Now there are other guides out there to help with specifics but the basics are:

You need one champion to deal 100% of your damage (ideally), this is called your DPS. I would advise to change the setting from Base DPS to Average DPS. But really the number you are always interested in is your BUD.

BUD is your (Buddy) indication to how much damage you are dealing and is located next to your ultimate bar (the lightning bolt – no not Usain).

To get your BUD the highest as possible, your formation must benefit solely towards your chosen DPS or a DPS that is available in that adventure (if it has restrictions). So each champion is vital to your formation through their abilities and buffs/debuffs.

There are many guides out there, however, I would advise (if you are having trouble with a specific adventure) to open a new forum post on the steam forums or head to the Discord, if you are so inclined. There, the community are on hand to tailor something for you. Otherwise, again reading through Gaar’s Formation 101 – [reddit.com]  for a better understanding of formations. It is better to teach yourself, than to copy others with this fundamental part of the game.

Layer 8 – An Abundance of Things you will Never Need

Now you are set up and nearing the mid-game (in my opinion) by this point you are now intrigued by what are these colour spaces at the bottom of each champion card? And if you weren’t paying attention before, you are now wondering what do they mean?

Gear

Every chest you open, a gear card (or cards) will randomly drop for a champion that fits into that specific chest pool. I go into this more into my Beginners’ Guide to Chests – [steamcommunity.com] , so have a read there on the specifics.

Gear is automatically equipped to the corresponding champion’s slot to make them stronger. Four rarities of gear exist for each slot (Common (White), Uncommon (Green), Rare (Blue), and Epic (Purple), and each can be more effective by being either Shiny or Golden Epic.

All gear can be obtained for free, apart from Golden Epics which are usually part of CNE’s Weekend Buff deals or DLC packs.

Common advice is to buy Gold Chests (with gems) in order to get your Evergreens (and Core Champions) to all epics. In mathematical terms, that is 1080 (540k Gems) Gold Chests if you fall to the pity timer every time and have the worst luck in getting epics. This is for all 18 Evergreen/Core Champions. I did this with 15 evergreens at first, before I got other Evergreens through Campaigns by opening around 600 Gold Chests within 3 months of play (and I am slow). The others I got immediately once unlocking as I kept any Gold Chests I acquired through random looting or bought through Gems. However, this was when we used to get free Gold Chests every week and not Electrums. The meta changing a little bit there, towards opening Electrums until you are fully blue on your Evergreens/Cores and then opening Golds to epic out your roster.

There is a nice table of the effect of gear on the wiki here – [fandom.com]  for further reading. They also list all the purchasable Golden Epics there as well.

Items

Moving on, items have been filling your loot bag (inventory) for awhile now and most you know what they do (albeit the potions) by this time but you are not quite sure on some.

Other than your Common, Uncommon, Rare and Epic Potions you also receive Hunter Potions either through purchased DLC or by Spectacular Events by CNE. These Hunter potions last for seven days and are either for Damage, Speed or Gems. The last one being available typically in the Founders Pack, a recommended pick up if you can comfortably afford to.

Next are Contracts, we have already gone into Bounty Contracts in our Events section yet Blacksmithing Contracts (“Smithy”) are another type of contracts that you will want to get to know as you play the Forgotten Realms. Smithy Contracts, as to anything else in this game, come in different rarities as below:

Tiny – Common – 1 level

Small – Uncommon – 2 levels

Medium – Rare – 6 levels

Large – Epic – 24 levels

The general advice for Smithy Contracts is, firstly, keep one Tiny in your bag forever. This is so you can check what champions (that you have currently) have in terms of average ilvls.

What are ilvls?

Ilvls or “Loot Levels” (in which CNE said once and sort of forgot about) are the levels on each Gear card and gain extra power from the increased levels. You cannot “upgrade” a rarity through levelling up, you have to find the rarities by chest drops. However, each upgrade of rarity keeps your ilvls. The only Gear card capped are generally the ultimate cooldown Gear card and so the race to epic for that card is generally the case. Although, I don’t think you “lose” Smithy levels as if they are over the cap they stop going to that card.

The common advice for using Smithy Contracts is to not use them on Evergreens or your Core Champions, yet to put them all towards your Event Champions. This is due to the fact you will be opening tons of Silvers and Golds throughout your gameplay and these will add to your ilvls for those champions.

Then it gets super subjective on whom to give them to. Typically, if you want speed it is Hew Maan, Briv and Sentry (with a nod to Melf). If you want better passive buffs it is Freely or Avren, whilst it is your favoured DPS that also can benefit for more ilvls.

Side Note

There are also Feats. They are picked up generally every 20-25 Gold Chests you open and can also be bought by Gems or Real Money (Legendary Feats). I wouldn’t really worry about them until you come to Patrons.

Layer 9 – Circumvent Dante

Multi-Party Mode & Split the Party

The next layer, is now getting closer to the actual onion itself! Along the way, you have been collecting champions and these champions have their allotted slots in which they are placed. It is these slots where the requirements for the Adventuring Party’s “Split the Party” missions come into play. The first “Split the Party”, you will need two champions in one slot and the second “Split the Party” you will need 3 champions in each slot. So this is food for thought when collecting your champions. Incidentally, you will need 8 champions to see the Adventuring Parties icon shown on the bottom right.

This is yet another layer to the game for your power and also automation. For more details you can watch a video guide

. This opens up working with two parties (or plus) and automating them through familiars and your Modron Core. The Modron Core also has a mini-game within generally called the “pipe game” which the player can gain various Benefits to their formations/parties of which more can be found

on this.

Layer 10 – Entering Purgatory

Patrons

At this stage you have probably seen or even dabbled with Patrons, another layer of the Onion and your power for your continuing journey. There are currently four Patrons in the game each having their unique Currency, Challenges, Perks, Shops and Influence. This allows you to gain more power through perks, work through new challenges with Patron Variants and get unique items through the shops.

Patron Currency & Challenges

Each Patron has requirements at first to unlock them and this is a onetime transaction or mission to complete in order to do so. After unlocking your first patron you will be met with a screen detailing their Summary, Perks, Shop & Challenges.

The Patron Currency, is a unique limited currency in which as you play through levels (2 per level), which can be increased by a Blessing (“Extreme Patronage” in Avernus). There are three ways in which you can gain currency for a patron.

The first way is through Free-play adventures where the weekly limit is 5,000.

The second way is through Variants where it is “unlimited” in the sense that you can gain these at any time by completing various variants and isn’t held on a limitation per week, but you are limited in the fact that there are only so many variants. Completing these also gain Influence.

The third way is through Weekly Challenges. Weekly Challenges (or “Chores” as we call them) are 10 Challenges per week per patron earning another 5,000 Patron Currency that week and 1,000 more if you max out Mirt’s perk “Challenge Accepted” (For you chasers out there you will need 3.48e6 influence to fully kit out this perk).

Mainly that is it but some advice would be to not necessarily focus solely on these chores but to do them in the background. I wouldn’t even worry so much in getting ALL of these week per week when you first start out (as you are just leading to a headache). However, generally, it will get easier to do them once you get stronger, have more favour in your campaigns and you can automate through your Modron Core etc… So the takeaway is don’t stop your progress for these. There is always next week :).

Patron Influence, Perks & Variants

Now you know the basics, you want to know how do I earn these perks mentioned above. Well, by doing Patron Variants. Patron Variants are the same variants you did originally but now with their specific restrictions added to the restrictions already in place. So, for example, if you had a variant with a restriction whereby only DEX 14+ champions can participate, with Patron Mirt the Moneylender this will also be only Good or Evil champions.

Once you complete a Patron Variant you will receive a little bit of Currency and Influence. Patron Influence is another sort of currency, where you use it to gain Perks related to that Patron. So you can’t do a Variant for Mirt and use that influence on buying a Varja perk as you’re not gaining influence with Varja and she has no clue who you are! But Mirt the moneylender (in this case) does know you and therefore, you can buy an upgrade of a perk. The more influence you earn from a variant the more perks you will be able to buy (hopefully that goes without saying). So generally, the advice is to start at most influence gained from a variant (and that you can do). Typically to find this level, just go ahead and do a variant. However, making an educated guess first to be in that ballpark you have to ask yourself: How many levels can I achieve without the Patron Restriction? How many champions am I allowed in this variant? And What restrictions does this particular variant have?

Normally, you give a wide berth (so avoid) to anything that limits the number of champions you can field in an adventure (so don’t do “Are Ya Chicken”, you are wasting your time). Otherwise, it is free reign to do what you can at your current power level. So as always, you may be going back to some earlier layers to gain more in those (whether it be blessings, favour etc) before you try out Patrons.

Side Note: You will only be able to do a Patron Variant if you have first completed that variant normally.

Patron Shop

And now it all comes to this, the shop. The Patron Shop is where the Currency you have been gathering and the influence you have been earning come into effect. The Currency is used to buy an item in their shop whilst Influence earned through Patron Variants is used to unlock items.

In the shop, there are also limitations on how many of each you can buy per week. So for time-pieces you can buy only one per week per Patron Shop. For potions it is usually 2 per week unless it’s the very expensive Potion of Specialisation (don’t buy this, really it’s too expensive for what it does).

Whilst you will also have unique items which are limited to one only. Typically you will always have a Potion of Polish, a Familiar and a Golden Epic for a particular champion. It also contains Skins, feats etc…

Usually, the patron shop is mostly used for buying time gate pieces and if you are in a pickle epic potions (speed, bud, health, gold and damage)… Some players do buy these potions every week, some only buy them if they need them. I would personally advise the latter as you will be opening so many chests over your time playing that potions shouldn’t be a problem. (Especially the Potion of Specialisation, seriously, do not buy…I have over 10,000 of them. And they cost HALF of what you earn in a week with a patron? Yes…expensive…darn right daylight robbery!)

As usual for more information on Patrons see below:

Layer 11 – Another Fence to Clear

Timegates

Time to open the gate (oh no) in explaining the feature TimeGates (TGs). As I have already detailed in the champions section, TGs can be used to unlock champions with either time pieces or natural TG weekends.

Time-pieces you will loot from bosses during the game every now and then (around 3 to five days). You can also buy them at a Patron Shop as explained above. Once you gain or buy SIX time pieces (“pieces”), you can unlock your TimeGate. Timegates are like mini-events where you will have 3 days to complete 3 missions each giving a Gold Champion Chest (of the champion you selected!) and each unique 100 levels passed (100,200,300 etc) you will gain a Silver Champion Chest. They have their own favour but are like events whereby all your power, blessings etc are taken into account. Sadly, however, no “start strong” type element here, hopefully we get a timegate related Blessing soon.

Due to the shortness of time, this should be your focus when you open a timegate, right until you finish a timegate and grinding for favour does help but is not essential. As usual you will need circa e08 to e10 to complete all of them with ease and there are various ways to do this.

The general way is the use of potions, typically speed, gold, bud (firebreath) or damage. I personally use 1 hour of these potions for my first run, and epic of these potions on my second run, each time farming favour at the end to gain as much favour as possible. What you are also doing in these runs, is trying to go for the next 100 as much as possible as it is advised not to go further than you have to on the third restricted (their variant) adventure. So if you are close to the next 100, by all means try for the next century and therefore chest drop but don’t hang around too long within an adventure.

After completing your third and final adventure you can close the gate and gain the favour. (of course, if you were close to the next 100, you can try another free play if you have time) It is up to you where to convert your favour but Mystra’s favour will not pass-over to the next TG and you will be forced to convert it if you do go into another TG anyway (or any mission for that matter).

Each time you open a TG with the same champion the harder the completions for those first two adventures get (starting at 50/75 and going up 25 per time). However, every third unique timegate champion you choose it will reset. So, for example, if I choose Briv for my first time, I will have 50/75 to complete, if I chose Briv again it would be 100/125 but if I did another two champions in between and Briv on the fourth opening his completion levels will reset to 50/75. Therefore, it is generally advised to rotate your TGs for every 3 champions. Of course, as a new player you will want to go for new champions to add to your collection rather than doing the same champions (which comes later).

Natural TimeGates

Natural TGs are free TG weekends whereby everyone and their mother can open a TG for free. However, the catch is you get three “random” champions to choose from only. Each player gets a different selection of champions (well, of course by probability you will probably have some players with the same!) and thus asking on either steam forums, reddit or discord is usually run of the course.

The “random” champions are not so random. The first champion drawn will always be a Year 1 Event Champion and champions you have not got yet are more likely to turn up. However, this could be on only one slot or two. So you could get a Year 1 champion that you have not got yet and the other two being champions you have already. That is the “random” element.

Side Note: This may change as they are retiring champions every event now (only having the three “recent” year champions as I explain in my Champions section), thus they may add to the slot 1 pool every year or every time it’s the last event for a champion of that annual event. We don’t know yet.

TGs Never ends

After Collecting all the champions and “catching up” with us oldies, you will still want to open TGs with your pieces. This is inevitably be because you will want better gear with your champions or just more ilvls in general for them.

As this is highly subjective, the general advice is to go for your most used champions first and kit them out with fully epics (to get one epic can take 3 or 4 Timegates depending on your luck with the pity timer) to make them stronger for you in the future. Otherwise, it is totally subjective on who is best to focus on and entirely up to you. By then though, you will know yourself what to do.

Layer 12 – A Baker’s Dozen

Achievements

In-Game Achievements (IGAs)

By now you know all the game mechanics and are enjoying the game, and this is when you turn your attention to in game achievements (if you haven’t already).

In-game achievements (IGAs) are yet another way to gain power, albeit a tiny amount per achievement.

However, this tiny amount really does add up to pure damage increase with no downsides. The majority of IGAs are achieved simply by enjoying the game and/or playing the event and their champions.

For a full list please see the wiki – [fandom.com] . Although, not an exhaustive list.

 

Here we come to an end for Idle Champions of the Forgotten Realms All Layers of the Forgotten Realms hope you enjoy it. If you think we forget something to include or we should make an update to the post let us know via comment, and we will fix it asap! Thanks and have a great day!