If you get killed alone on the map because you wanted to grab a buff or push a lane, you automatically bring your team a disadvantage.
Good luck! We hope this guide helps you learn something and improve your game. Do you have any more tips? Then feel free to share them with us in the comments.
Arena of Valor is a mobile MOBA for all players who do not want to miss out on arena action while on their smartphone or tablet. In this guide, we explain what you should pay attention to when playing.
In our beginner guide, we want to introduce you to the game mechanics of Arena of Valor. Questions such as:
- How should a team be composed?
- What is jungling?
- How do you gain advantages as a team to easily and quickly defeat opponents?
If you want to be successful in ranked games, you should follow these tips.
Don’t know Arena of Valor yet? Here’s our preview test of the “MOBA for a quick game”
The Basics
In Arena of Valor, your goal is to destroy the opposing core and thereby win a match. You will be supported by a team that consists of two or four other players depending on the game mode. In this guide, we primarily focus on the 5v5 mode. However, some tips regarding item choice and team compositions can also be transferred to other game modes.
In the 5v5 game, there are three paths (lanes) where towers are located. As a team, you will spread out on the top lane, mid lane, and bottom lane. The fourth option is the jungle, where the junglers play.
Lone wolves have a hard time, and selfishness is rarely rewarded in Arena of Valor. Therefore, coordinate with your team to play advantages and push the opponents back to their base. In addition to communication, the choice of classes and purchasing the “right” items is important.
Laning Phase and Teamfights
During a match, we roughly distinguish between two phases. In the beginning, there is the “laning phase”. The duration of this phase varies from match to match. On average, it lasts about 5 minutes. During this time, players are on their lane, killing minions and dueling opponents. You use this time to gather gold and experience points and prepare for team fights.
The team phase is the second phase of the game. Here, you move across the map in a group, if possible. Combined with tanks and supporters, your team is compact and strong. When you encounter single opponents who are not grouped yet, they are easy targets for you.
If you feel that it is time to group up, there are also chat commands to alert your allies about your decision. For example, the green flag on the right side of the screen or the chat command “Group up for the team fight”.
As a team, you go bundled to objectives, try to tear down towers, or defeat the strong dragons in the jungle. Because you are harder to stop as a group, you can fight your way to the core more easily. Lone wolves can easily be overwhelmed and killed by the opposing team.
A strong team consists of different classes. There are six different classes, which we will now introduce to you.
Classes in Arena of Valor
The many heroes in Arena of Valor are divided into six different classes. There are:
- Tanks
- Warriors
- Assassins
- Mages
- Marksmen
- Supporters
A typical team consists of a tank, a warrior, an assassin, a marksman, and a mage. If you prefer to play a supporter, that’s also a good choice, as each class has a different impact on your team.
Tanks
Tanks are equipped with defensive items, withstand a lot of damage, and are usually melee fighters. You can initiate team fights (engage) with them or protect your marksmen. During the laning phase, tanks are usually played on the top lane or protect the marksmen on the bot lane.
Warriors
Warriors can be played with defensive items or attack items. They are melee fighters and are usually in the middle of team fights.
Assassins
Assassins are good at getting kills in close combat. You play them with high attack power and little defense. They move quickly and usually strike before the team fight begins to kill an opponent and give their own team the advantage. In team fights, they usually come from ambush and unexpectedly attack the soft targets (marksmen, mages) of the opponents.
Mages
Mages deal most damage with their spell abilities and not with automatic attacks. With them, you buy ability power and try to stand at a distance from the opposing team in team fights so that your spells are just within range. Depending on your team composition, you can also equip mages with more defensive items and then be closer in fights. During the laning phase, mages are usually played in the middle, but you can also help out on the bot lane.
Marksmen
Marksmen are ranged fighters equipped with a lot of attack power. With this class, you can deal a lot of consistent damage with your automatic attacks. However, you need to position yourself well. Normally, during team fights, you stand in the “backline”, all the way in the back. Tanks and warriors stand in front of you and hold off opponents, allowing you to kill them from a safe zone. During the laning phase, you usually play marksmen on the bot lane.
Supporters
Supporters assist the team with their abilities by either healing allies, shielding them, or increasing their defense. They often have abilities to keep opponents away from allies. In team fights, they should pay special attention to marksmen and assassins to keep them alive for a long time. During the laning phase, you usually play supporters on the same lane as marksmen.
To support your team, you don’t necessarily have to play on a lane. There are also monsters in the jungle that you can defeat, which will give you gold and EXP.
Jungle in Arena of Valor
As a jungler, your role in the team works a bit differently, as you do not have a specific lane where you fight. In the hero selection screen, you should choose the “Punish” spell for this task. With this, you deal 800 damage to monsters in one hit – the damage of this spell increases with your level. This adds more speed to your gameplay and makes jungling significantly easier.
Your task as a jungler is to kill the monsters in the forest between the lanes. Each team has six of these monsters on their jungle side. These spawn again at regular intervals after being killed.
Short-term buffs are granted when you kill the red monster (Power Golem) or blue monster (Wisdom Golem) in the jungle.
- The power buff: Your normal attacks reduce enemy movement speed and deal an additional 21-50 damage (halved for ranged attacks).
- The wisdom buff: Increases your cooldown reduction by 20% and restores an additional 2% mana per second.
At the end of each river, you will also find the abyss dragon and the spirit watcher.
Killing the abyss dragon grants gold and experience points to the entire team. The spirit watcher increases regeneration to 1% HP per second.
A group challenge is the Dark Slayer. With this giant monster, you will have a tough battle, and it’s better to only attack it as a strong group. Because this beast hits hard.
Once you have killed it, the Dark Slayer rewards you with a 30% damage buff and 1% regeneration of mana and HP per second. This buff applies to the entire team and is very powerful.
By killing monsters, you collect buffs, gold, and experience points. As a jungler, you also assist your team with “ganks”.
What are Ganks?
Ganks are surprise “visits” to the lanes. You use the element of surprise to attack the opponent with your ally and, ideally, kill them. For example, in the mid lane, you have the opportunity to engage from above or below.
If you suddenly rush out of the bushes, you can quickly overwhelm opponents who are too far from their tower. Timing plays a crucial role and can be quite tricky. But don’t worry: you will get better at timing as you play more frequently as a jungler.
To play the jungler role well, heroes with abilities that control opponents are suitable. For instance, by using a stun from Gildur, a slow from Toro, or other CC effects like taunt from Mina.
As a jungler, it is essential to keep an eye on the map and ask yourself, “Where are opponents too far out? Can I kill them together with my allies on the lane or force them to teleport back?”
If the opponents on the lane are too strong or your health points are too low, the gank could quickly turn to the advantage of the opponents. You should pay attention to this before the gank. Your goal is, after all, to drive the opponent from the lane and give your allies the opportunity to destroy a tower.
The more often you play the role of jungler, the easier it will be for you to decide when a gank attempt is worthwhile and when it is better to kill monsters in the jungle.
Counter-Jungle – Steal the Opponents’ Monsters
Counter-jungling is a popular way to gain an advantage over the other jungler. To do this, you traverse the river that separates both sections of the map in the middle and kill monsters on the opponent’s side of the map. This way, you steal experience points and gold from the other jungler.
But be careful! First, take a look at the map before you take down monsters on the opponent’s side of the map. If you don’t see the enemy jungler, there’s a chance he is waiting for you. The rest of the enemy team is often quicker to arrive on their side of the map than your allies are.
The Right Jungle Items
As a jungler, you have an extra category “Jungle” in the shop. The “Hunter’s Crossbow” is available as a starter item with three upgrade options. With this item, you enhance your punish summoning spell and deal more damage to monsters in the jungle. This is practical for quickly gathering experience points and leveling up.
The Shop – What Items Should I Buy?
Buying items is an important aspect of Arena of Valor. You can buy items on the go and do not have to return to base to do so. But what items should you buy?
Glass Cannon or Buy Defense?
In matches, the question often arises, “Should I buy defense, or can I get by with pure attack?” Unfortunately, there is no standard answer to this issue. It always depends on the respective match how you should equip your hero.
For a bit of defense, we like to build a defensive item on marksmen and mages and the rest aggressively. For these two classes, we buy “Glory of the Ancients”. This item grants a bonus of 1000 max health points. Additionally, you respawn after death. Three seconds after you have been defeated, this item revives you with 40% health points, and you can fight again. This effect has a cooldown of 3 minutes.
However, if you completely dominate a game and your allies take good care of you, you can often skip the defensive item and buy even more damage instead. This is fun and hits hard.
What Penetration?
In general, the game suggests items for different heroes. So, if you don’t want to think too much, let the recommended items guide you.
However, this is not always the perfect choice. If you are facing a team that has purchased a lot of resistances, you should buy items that penetrate these resistances. If the opposing team is “soft” and has hardly bought any defense, you can prefer pure damage and don’t have to rely on armor or magic penetration.
For penetration, heroes with attack power use the item “Breaker of Shields”. The passive property of the item provides the following bonus: “After a target takes damage, this reduces its physical defense by 50 points for 5 seconds. Can be stacked 5 times.” If an opponent has taken 5 hits from you, their physical defense is reduced by 250. This greatly reduces the bonus of a Frost Mantle, which normally provides 300 physical defense.
Mages use items like “Hecat’s Crown” for magic penetration. This provides a bonus of 200 ability power in addition to a magic penetration bonus of 75 points. This bonus is flat and doesn’t need to be executed on a single hero; it also counts for area attacks.
Tips for a Successful Game in Arena of Valor
You have now learned the basic rules of Arena of Valor. Now it’s about implementing these in the game.
- Hero Selection: Don’t immediately pick your favorite hero and confirm the choice; instead, pay attention to what your team composition looks like and what others want to play. If your team consists only of “soft” heroes, a tank would be a good addition.
- Choose the Right Lane: If a teammate is already in the middle, go to the top or bot lane. In the first few minutes, observe which allies might have problems and help them.
- Ganks: You can gank not only as a jungler. You can also quickly run to the top lane from the middle and start a surprise attack. It’s best to alert your teammates via the chat.
- Tearing down Towers: It’s not all about kills in Arena of Valor. After you’ve killed an opponent, you should use the opportunity to deal damage to their tower. Knocking down towers gets you closer to the opponent’s base and thus to the core – the objective of a match.
- Stay Motivated, Don’t Flame: Anyone frustrated after a death shouldn’t take it out on their team. Instead, contribute ideas. Rather than writing how dumb your assassin’s last action was, use the chat command “Group up for the team fight”. Perhaps as a group, you’ll have a better chance.
- Communication: Communication with allies is essential for a successful game. You have the chat to write in and quick commands for attack, defense, and grouping. You can find the icons for these commands on the right side of the screen above the chat symbol.
Those who wish can also use the built-in voice chat for communication with the team. You can activate this via the speaker and microphone symbol on the minimap.
Little Ego Actions: It’s nice if you can take down enemy heroes in a 1v2 scenario. However, it’s pointless if the other three opponents are attacking your base and your team is overwhelmed. You should always keep an eye on the map.
Proper Positioning: In team fights, it is important to stand correctly. If a soft hero is at the front, they will drop dead from the first enemy skill shots. If you stand as a tank outside the group and let enemies simply pass you by, you at least need to take care of the enemy backline.
If you get killed alone on the map because you wanted to grab a buff or push a lane, you automatically bring your team a disadvantage.
Good luck! We hope this guide helps you learn something and improve your game. Do you have any more tips? Then feel free to share them with us in the comments.
