Basics/Timeless Guide

Guide on Timeless Trials by Tinywhale (played CN version 14/8/18 - now, cleared SSS5 just released at CN )
Time Trials are a mid to late feature of the game. You can do them anytime beyond lvl 30 but the stages get more and more difficult as you progress. It is a weekly repeatable event.

Time Trials are divided into 5 stages per level categories as D/D+/.../A/A+/S/SS with E being the easiest and SS being the hardest. You have to clear 5 stages for each level before progressing to the next, example S1-S5 before SS making a total of 50 stages in the time trial.

Time Trials takes 5 energy per stage and total 250 for all stages. The energy used in the Time trials can be counted as energy used in the mysterious stages so you can use it to calculate daily energy usage to qualify for the “150 energy used in mysterious stages” / “300 energy..” bonus rewards. When you cleared the time trials levels you are able to sweep them the next week up to 2 levels before. Example if you cleared B5 but can’t clear A1, you are able to sweep to after C5 and begin at C+1 the next week. Maximum sweep is till A5 meaning from A+1 to SS5, you will have to do the new ones every week. Sweeping will still cost 5 energy per stage.

Note: SSS challenges (SSS1 to SSS5) are released just in Jan 2019 and the difficulty level is higher than SS levels but achievable by long playing FTP players. The thinking required is more intense and no longer able to do the standard buff and AOE the whole bunch of enemies.

I will provide the guide in an FAQ manner and if there are more questions I can answer them in the Chinese data chat in discord.

FAQ:
Q: Why should I play the timeless trial?

A: Time trials provide good rewards such as red nuts (for SSR items exchange), gems and gold tickets. You can get a max of 250 red nuts, 590 gems and 3 gold tickets for clearing all the stages. The top item is clearing SS5 for a SSR accessory which currently is considered very rare. If you are busy, you can clear once S5 and subsequent week sweep to A5 to enjoy 250 Orichalcum ores, 240 gems and 3 gold tickets weekly, not to mention many gold for upgrading purposes. Also Timeless trials changes every week so it’s currently the most challenging and requires thinking rather than brute strength feature of the game.

Update: SSS5 gives a quarter of a rune stone and it works out to be 1 full runestone if you clear it 4 times a row.

Q. How should I prepare for the Timeless Trials?

A. To prepare yourself you can just jump into the stages to try and see if your army is strong enough. Generally when you progress you are able to clear the stages from E to B easily depending on the condition of the stages. Use that to gauge where you should improve. Example, is your tank strong enough or can your dps one shot the enemy etc.

Q. What makes the Timeless trials difficult?

A. There are several conditions in the stages that makes winning difficult and because you may not have focused on overall training but just focus training on some characters and army, you may find it difficult. Some unique conditions are as follow:

1. Certain army types suffer disadvantage or certain army types gain advantage.

2. Physical or magical damage are halved.

3. Only fixed damage can harm the enemy or fixed damage is nullified.

4. Movement per square suffer 20% damage reduction to a max of 100%.

5. Adverse effects are nullified.

6. No guarding (by tanks)

These are just a few examples and not to say the enemies out level you and have insane stats which can easily one shot you or AOE your team to oblivion.

Q. So who should I focus to train to make time trials easier?

A. For a start, build up your flyer army and spear army. Recommend trying to maxed out angel (lvl 10) and phalanx (level 7-10).

Also these characters are often MVP of time trials where they receive special bonus stats increase (every stage 5, example B5/A5/...), so try to draw them and maxed them out in all aspects in terms of equip, character binding bonus, stars and so on.

1. Cherie - her second turn after killing an enemy makes her able to kill 2 enemies. With maxed angel, she’s able to reach far, kill and either double kill or escape to safety.

2. Leon - able to equip angel and bats, angel gives high attack while bats gives blood sucking after attack. He’s one of the highest attacker due to his 40% army bonus modifier and movement increase Attack talent. Also he’s able to move 3 squares after his attack making him able to retreat somewhat to safety.

3. Ledin/Freya/Vargas/Any Grand Marshall - These 4 makes the best tanks in the game. Generally Ledin can solves most of the stages by just casting his godly guard and let enemies charge to their deaths. But there are some stages that don’t allow you to guard so no one is almighty. Freya gives fixed damage which in certain conditions such as physical damage is halved or only fixed damage cause damage, she will be an MVP. Also, her talent cause enemy to suffer fixed damage when they attack her, making range attacker suffer damage too.

4. Lana/Luna/Liana - Trio princesses deadly combo. Luna can Super buff lana and the buff can cause an additional 15% of enemy current health fixed damage after every attack. Use it and let lana cast her AOE, anyone caught in the damage will suffer at least 15% HP damage even when the enemy mdef is very high. Let Liana cast "again" skill and Lana cast another AOE, this makes enemy lose at least net 30% HP. If your lana is strong, you can see the enemy health bar decreasing to a point where your dps can pick them off easily.

5. Elwin. After (a patch) buffing his talent, Elwin is a crucial character in killing enemy spear units and in order to increase his popularity, he appeared as bonus character and more enemy spear units are seen in S5/SS5 stages. Be sure to have a good sword and see Elwin cut through the enemy spear units like paper and remain 100% HP after.

6. Zelharda - she’s the white elf of Matthew love interest. Recommend to train to 5 stars and double rune her before she’s functional. Equip her with meteor or Crit damage scrolls. Reason is her talent adds up to 30% crit damage bonus so it’s crucial to let her crit. Combined with bozel, she can cast her unique "sacrifice soldier" skill and one shot enemy hero and then escape to safety. In stationary stages, she will be an MVP paired with bozel giving her Super buff. 7. Bozel/Emperor - stun skill, no brainer, gives team no retaliation from enemy.

8. Heinz/Jessica - teleport and meteor. Teleport allies to safety. Meteor cause 20% HP fixed damage at end of enemy turn, 5 meteors technically is GG for any enemy. Some “black technology” can enable that to happen sometimes.

9. Frieka - she can exchange spot with enemy, also black technology for some stationary stages.

PS: The stages are divided into stationary and moving stages.

Stationary stages, enemies will not move when at the end of the turn if there are no friendly heroes in the danger zone. You can adopt strategies that attack and kill an enemy and escape to safety. Note that if you attack and didn’t kill the enemy, all will charge at you even if you escape out to safety zone.

Moving stages, the enemies will move to you regardless of the danger zone. You can gauge their movement and attack them in the next or subsequent turns. These stages are harder and need your characters to be built to a certain strength.

All the best for your conquest in the time trials, took me 2 months to clear the first S5 and once cleared S5, you will realize SS5 is your regular to do list for the week. Enjoy!