Arena of Valor - How to Start Playing Beginner's Guide

Released in August 2017 in Europe, Arena of Valor is the MOBA developed for mobile platforms by Tencent. While the idea of enclosing such a complicated game genre within the confines of a screen and a mobile phone processor may seem reckless, Arena of Valor it has succeeded and millions of players around the world connect every day to enter the arena and collide. So we offer you this comprehensive guide to learning how to play, whether you're a seasoned MOBA player or one with limited experience in the genre.

Arena of Valor complete guide: the basics

First, let's start by briefly defining what a MOBA is, how the game is played and what the objectives are to be pursued. The main mode provides a 5 against 5 fight within the field of play: you will not play alone, then, but you will be joined by 4 other players like you. Each of you will have the possibility to choose a character, and it will not be possible to select twice the same one, forcing you to have at least one backup character in case someone else decides to select your favorite.

Theoretically, any character can play any role, but it's much better to have a strategy in mind before you start. Everyone has a passive skill, two normal skills and one ultimate skill. Normal abilities have the lowest cooldown, while ultimate will have a significantly longer cooldown to compensate for the fact that it is a much more powerful ability than the other two.

The goal Arena of Valor is to destroy the opponent's crystal, while protecting ours from enemy attacks. To do this you'll need to collaborate and coordinate properly with your team, skillfully balancing skirmishes with your opponents, moments when you'll simply make minions on the lines and moments when you'll need to put pressure on the opposing base. You'll also be able, as in League of Legends, to support your team by killing neutral minions in the jungle, some of which will give you gold, others power-ups. The latter can be either individual like the one you receive from the Might Golem, others can upgrade your entire team, like the one you receive from the Dark Slayer.

As mentioned earlier, killing the minions on the different lines will be essential to continue the game, as they will be your main source of gold to spend on upgrading items, as well as experience to enhance your skills.

Arena of Valor the conditions for victory

For the game to end, the two teams must make their way to the opposing base by destroying the towers defending the opposing playing field, until they reach the crystal in front of the crystal in the opposing base. A fundamental rule that applies to AoV as it does to any MOBA is that it is a goal-oriented game. As much as killing enemies in a frenzy is definitely one of the most important fun factors, you should never forget the main objective, and therefore your team should be able to work together to break into the opponents' base. If you want to win, forget about your KDR and focus on the best way to be a good team player, perhaps sacrificing your stats in favor of your team if you realize that you need someone to coordinate the action.

The classes

As in League of Legends, Arena of Valor the characters are divided into categories, taking into account that some characters can be used in more than one role. The classes in AoV are tank, warrior, assassin, wizard, sniper, and support.

A tank is generally a character with a very large pool of hit points, therefore able to resist the attacks of enemies and open the way for your team. Generally a tank also has crowd control skills, or at least a way to reach opponents easily. For example, Mina has a hook to grab enemies like LoL's Blitzcrank, as well as having a provocation to force them to attack her and allow the other more fragile champions to attack from a distance.

A warrior is similar to a tank, but they generally have more damage and less tools to control enemies. Lu Buu for example, has a skill that allows you to launch an enemy into the air, but only after the third attack has been scored. It also has an ability to slow down enemies, but instead of being used as a pathfinder it is useful for him to launch himself into combat and complete the kill. His ultimate is nothing more than an upgrade, giving him life steal and allowing him to slaughter enemies. The equivalent in terms of League of Legends is therefore the bruiser, like Garen for example, or Sonya in terms of Heroes of the Storm.

Assassins are characters whose role is to identify a fragile target and focus on it, generally in the rear and capable of generating considerable damage. Assassins have a limited amount of hit points compared to tanks and warriors, which is compensated for by their extremely high damage output and their ability to concentrate on an enemy. Butterfly, for example, has an ability that allows it to teleport to enemies with low hit points, slow down and damage them badly.

Wizards are those characters who make spells their strength, rather than attack damage as warriors and assassins. Wizards rely on ability power and their damage rather than concentrated as in the case of assassins will occur over time. Classic wizard skills allow you to harass, start skirmishing, or control the enemy team. Veera has two abilities that can damage opponents, his first ability and his ultimate, while the other ability is a stun that can allow you to score your combo or have a team mate score his skills.

Snipers or marskmans are those characters based almost entirely on self-assault damage. Like the ADCs in League of Legends, their ability to be useful in a fight depends on how many items they have, and it is therefore optimal to make them well equipped to fight. Valhein has a skill that allows him to stun them for a short period of time, as well as an enhancement that allows him to increase his speed of movement.

Supports are characters whose role is, as the name suggests, to support their team. Peura, for example, can provide your team with an armor ability to slow down and damage enemies, while another ability allows you to heal yourself and your team while increasing your attack speed.

In addition to classes, there are also several roles. These generally depend on the characters chosen, but some roles match some of the classes. For example, many tanks fall into the mobility role as they have skills to improve their team's ability to position themselves during battles.

The Game Phase: The Laning Phase

As in other MOBAs, Arena of Valor there is a laning phase. In this initial period of the clash, you and your enemies will clash on the various lines, trying to harass each other trying to kill all the minions that will appear, to guarantee you gold and experience. This phase is of central importance, because already at this time, if you are good at hindering opponents, you may find yourself in an advantage of gold and experience and therefore find yourself in a privileged position. If your character is a marskman, what you'll have to concentrate on in this phase will be trying to give the last hit to the largest number of minions, as doing so you will receive much more gold than just letting them die. The gold you get will allow you to buy items, enhancing your characters. Although in certain cases you will be able to kill your enemies at this stage, your priority must be to hinder them, without taking unnecessary risks.

The lane phase in AoV ends when the outermost towers are gone, which will happen much faster than in other MOBAs. There's no fixed rule as to when it's best to push to the opponent's base: sometimes it's better to avoid pushare immediately and to push gold from the minions for as long as possible, other times the sudden push will be the best solution that will lead you to victory. This depends, for example, on the characters chosen, as some may be more efficient at low levels, and therefore prefer victories in a shorter time, while others are programmed to be unbeatable in the late game.

The jungle: a guide to how best to use it

Exploiting the jungle efficiently is perhaps one of the most difficult things in MOBA. Jungle means spending most of the time in the laning phase rather than in a line inside the jungle, leaving the opportunity for your team mate to get more experience (as it won't be split into more people) and get all the last hits for themselves. A jungler will also not only get gold and experience from the neutral monsters in the jungle, but will also get power-ups to become fearsome in skirmishes. The Sage Golem, for example, will increase mana regeneration and reduce the cooldown of your spells. The Might Golem, on the other side of the map, will give you a red power-up, giving you more attack speed and a slowdown to allow you to kill your opponents more easily. The best strategy is to use these buff to make ambushes, shuttling back and forth between wools and jungle.

Neutral creeps are also present in the river, like little ghosts hovering near the top and bottom lane. If you kill them, they will send a spirit to observe the opposing jungle, which will allow you to find out if someone is busy jungle-watching, and therefore if they are already weakened or ready to ambush your team. In addition to these, there are three other big minions in the river: the Abyssal Dragon, which will give your entire team experience and gold if killed, the Spirit Sentinel, which will give your entire team a regeneration buff, and the Dark Slayer, the strongest minion on the map, which will give your entire team damage enhancement and mana and hit point regeneration, regardless of whether they are in the area.

Killing the Dark Slayer, just like Baron in League of Legends and Roshan in Dota 2, will give you a huge advantage and it is therefore recommended to kill him before throwing the opponent's base to finish the game.

How talents work

The talents of Arena of Valor match the spells evoking spells of League of Legends. They are extra spells from the very long cooldown that can turn the tide of a fight, they are 10 in all and can be unlocked by leveling up. At level 1 you will only have Sprint, Restore and Recall. Restore and Recall cannot be removed. Recall will allow you, as in League, to return to your base to heal, while Restore will allow you to recover hit points. Be careful when using this spell, as if you take damage while the healing effect is in place it will be reversed and you will have wasted your spell. Sprint will allow you to increase your movement speed to allow you to reach your enemies more easily, Execute (unlocked at level 3) will allow you to do area damage to your enemies, useful to give the coup de grace. Flicker, instead, is the equivalent of Flash of League, allowing you to make a small teleport to escape or to kill an enemy.

The importance of the kills

Killing your enemies will not only slow down their growth as they'll spend time on base without letting them grow but will also guarantee you gold and experience points. These resources can be spent in the shop located in your base to buy items that can further enhance you and resume killing enemies.

If you're new to the game, don' Arena of Valor t build randomly, but refer to pre-existing builds in the game or guides you can find online. Some champions will prefer specific objects: the marksmen will prefer objects that increase their attack and their attack speed, the tanks, however, will have to focus on increasing their armor, their magical resistance and their hit points, magicians, however, will have to build objects that give ability power. However, don't be completely one-dimensional, support objects are essential and each character should build at least two of them. For example, the Medallion of Troy will give you regeneration of hit points, a magic absorbing shield and a remarkable magic defense, which will help you in case there is a very powerful wizard in the opposing team.

Arcana: the runes of Arena of Valor

The Arcana play the same role as the runes in League of Legends: they are chosen before the battle and allow you to have targeted power-ups, such as gold or a small bonus to attack, regeneration, or movement speed. They can be bought with the gold you earn in play at the end of the game.

There are three

Luckily if you're just starting out the runes won't have a big impact on your game, so before you open your wallet get familiar with the game. Only in case you decide to play competitively will you need optimized runes pages and pages of runes, so for now focus on your fun.

Arena of Valor How to get the characters, skins and Arcane

Arena of Valor presents a business model parallel to that of League of Legends, thus offering the possibility of getting Arcana and characters both with real money and with the money obtained during the game. The cost of the characters will vary, from less than 2000 gold to almost 20,000. To use your money to buy items in the shop you will have to buy vouchers, from a minimum of 3.99 from the cost of about 4 Euros to a maximum of 1199 (about 10 Euros). Some heroes fortunately don't need to be bought but will be unlocked by other methods. Veera will be unlocked simply by collecting your bonus logins, Ormarr will be automatically unlocked after a certain number of games.

As far as the skin is concerned, some can be obtained by raising the level, others through special events offered by Tencent or donated to players who will have reached the highest rank at the end of a season. In general, however, the way to get the skins will be to open your wallet and buy vouchers to spend in the shop in game.

Finally, the gems can be used in the gem store to obtain magical critals for use in lucky draws, arcana chests and cards that will give bonuses to the experience and the gold obtained. Keep in mind that there is a gold limit that you can get during the day that will vary from server to server.