Hell Mode Guide - September 2025

It's never been a better time to start attempting Hell mode runs than it is now - the nerfs to the mode earlier in the year made it significantly less difficult to get wins with more attainable gear. However, it's still a difficult mode. To beat it you'll need a solid strategy. With the variety of mythics that have been added to the game over the last couple months, you have some good options available to you.

This guide will go over all of the mythics that are currently in the hell mode meta, and will explain both the physical and magic builds of the game. Note that magic builds are very popular right now. Generally, magic builds are easier to run at a high level, and physical damage builds have a higher damage threshold due to having the full range of mythics available to them while requiring more micromanagement. If you're trying to beat hell at lower artifact levels, the magical build is going to be more consistent. Note that both builds have a lot of overlap as well.

Safe Box and Money Gun

How to Maximize Your Gold

Safe Box and Money Gun are important in every mode you've played. But in Hell you'll need to stack more gold than you have ever stacked. You should try to get to 60k gold before you start spending very much of it. Shoot for at LEAST 400k by the end of the match. You'll need to learn to optimize your missions at the start to do this - recruit all commons, kill hunt before wave 8, and whatever other mission there is I can't think of off the top of my head. The gold bonus from these missions compounds very heavily if you can avoid spending much of it until later.

Note that unlike in Hard, there's no mission for upgrading twice in Hell, so if you don't need to upgrade damage early you can save a little extra gold. Don't upgrade common or rare damage ever - you need all the gold you can get, and you'd only benefit from that upgrade for maybe 10 waves. Epics can clear wave 20 in some cases - use them! Also, you likely learned to avoid maxxing summon chance in lower difficulties. Most players still avoid this. In hell mode, it's totally viable to level summon chance to merge/sell for stones. In general, it's still recommended to keep the summon level around 6 to 9, but this is not a hard rule and depends on the situation.

The Rule of 4

Above, I briefly mention that one of the missions that gives gold and luck stones is killing the first hunt before wave 8. In general, the strategy here is if you get 4 epics, you can kill the hunt by wave 8. For each less than 4, you'll need to upgrade epic damage. This isn't a hard rule, but it's a good way to visualize the mission. You don't want to miss that mission after spending that gold to upgrade because then you miss out on 2 luck stones, some gold, and the gold you spent to upgrade.

For more in-depth tips on Hell gameplay, go to the Hell Mode Gameplay Guide.

The Three Types of Mythics

We classify Mythic guardians into three types: Boss Killers, Wave Clears, and Supports (including stuns). Boss Killers are needed because from Hell onwards, the bosses have so much health that Wave Clears alone will not be sufficient to kill the bosses (unless you are overflowing with Wave Clears, coins and mythic damage upgrades). Wave Clears are what you will be most acquainted with. DPSes which can deal good AoE damage and decent damage to bosses. Supports enhance your board or protect against the new special effects from Hell onwards.

This section only covers Mythic Guardians. Immortal Guardians will have their own section further below.

Boss Killers - Lancelot, Vayne, and Watt

Lancelot 12 - The % Boss Killer

Lance is the classic boss killer. His damage is nerfed a bit (-70% HP % damage) in Hell, but he's still the most dependable boss killer and 100% worth summoning. Although he is a boss-focused mythic, 2 Lances and 1 Wave Clear can clear the horde waves all the way to W80. It's important to note that he is countered by the Barrier boss. If you get a Barrier boss, you can not kill it with Lance.

Watt 12 - The Build Up Boss Killer

Watt 12 is technically the strongest unit in the game, but only for brief bursts of damage. Watt is particularly good when you and your partner are at least sb6. The reason for this, is with two sb6 players, there's not much risk of losing before wave 80, allowing you to save Watt for the final boss, which is often where people fail. Not only that, but as mentioned above, Barrier is practically immune to Lancelot's ult damage because Lance does damage based on max health, and Barrier's outer shield has 8 to 9 times the amount of health that his real health bar has. This is why Watt is the perfect counter to Barrier, dealing flat damage instead of damage based on how much health the enemy has.

Wave Clear Mythics - Tao, Chu, Bat Man, Hailey and Kun

Tao 12/15 - Top Magical Wave Clear

Solid magical damage. Also good as his best positions (rightmost column) are usually uncontested and space is at a premium in Hell.

Chu 12/15 - Top Physical Wave Clear

Still the top of the game for physical DPS wave clears. Also deals a good amount of damage to bosses.

Wave Clears - Mid-Tier Mythics

These mythics function as wave clears but each with their own drawbacks and generally dealing less damage than the top wave clears.

Hailey 12/15 - Big ATK boost Wave Clear

Hailey is great as she has a huge ATK boost from Star Power which also gets boosted by mythic damage upgrades. Her drawback is that she requires spending coins on summoning to increase her Star Power but increasing it later in the game when you have more coins (>60k) helps mitigate the downside. Having her exclusive treasure will also reduce the impact on your coin economy. She also does not keep up in damage with the top tier mythic wave clears as your sb increases. Another drawback is that she requires a Sheriff to summon, which is greatly in demand to also summon Lance or Indy.

Note: This assessment does not apply to her immortal form. See the immortal section for comments on Awakened Hailey.

Bomba 12 - Sb/mg-dependent Physical Wave Clear

Mythic Bomba is great for wave clears as his basic attack damage increases to 550% AoE damage with max Workout stacks. He requires Tiger to summon (same as Kun), which gives you a viable DPS for Tiger in higher difficulties compared to Kun which starts to fall short in Hell. A small drawback is that he competes with Lance for a melee spot and you may need Lance more for his boss-killing abilities, especially before SB 6.

Kun 6 - Cost-effective Magic DMG

Kun doesn't cost gold to upgrade, and if you can get his Rage at +80 or higher, he's solid all the way to the end. You'll still want to swap him with Lance if you get lots of mana though, because Lance with mana regen will still outdamage any of these 3 mythics. He is also cost-effective, being able to function at just level 6. His drawback is that his damage does not scale up well with sb/mg and he starts to fall behind your other mythics in damage output. Do not summon more than 1 Kun.

Supports

Indy 12

Indy is - deceptively - one of the most powerful characters in the game. He's unnecessary in the lower difficulties, but he's a staple in Hell. The biggest reason Indy shines so much in Hell is because you're often left completely filling your board to the point where you have no room. In the video on this page, you can see both me and my teammate’s board get completely filled by the end. This is where Indy can help.

He has a variety of buffs (see the full list here), and all of his legendary ones would take multiple spaces and units’ worth to get the same effect from any other source. The best one you can get when doing the physical strategy is Defense Reduction (DR).The reason his DR buff is so powerful is because one Indy can give as much DR as FOUR Monopoly Men or 5.5 Hunters, saving you up to 3 spaces or 5 unit capacity.

The best one to use when running magic builds is Attack Speed. One Indy can give you an attack speed bonus equal to EIGHT Eagles (nearly 3 full stacks). It's honestly insane. No other unit gives a comparable boost to attack speed.

Other notable treasures from Indy include getting luck stones every wave (epic or legendary), or coins every wave (legendary only) which are great for your economy early on. You can then transit into the DR or attack speed buffs when appropriate (W60+ for legendary luck stone treasure, W40+ for the epic luck stone and coin treasures).

Kitty 12

The first or second Mythic most people get to level 12. You want at least 4 of these Kitties to support Lancelot. Lancelot becomes very good at clearing waves as long as he has proper Kitty Mage support. Add in a Rocket Chu or a Tao, and as long as you have a proper stun setup (see the Stun Guide) you can fill the remaining spaces you have with Indy and epics for attack speed/defense reduction to give you the damage you'll need to beat the boss at W80. Lancelot is actually the best wave clearer you can get for this strategy, often outdamaging Chu and Tao if you can get the mana to support him. Kitty is also useful outside of this purpose but this specific synergy is the one that makes Kitty one of the highest rated characters in the game. Other major synergies for Kitty include:

Increasing the chances for summoning Awakened Hailey by increasing the frequency of her ults
Increasing the frequency of Awakened Hailey/Reaper Dian’s ults for better DPS
Increasing the frequency of Mono/Indy’s ults for better support

Ato 12

Ato is a great support for Physical DPS, having DEF reduction, boosting physical damage, and reducing ult cooldown times. He gives 20 DEF reduction, which is the standard across Mythic guardians with that ability. However, that 15% increased Physical DMG of allies from his active skill is really good as it multiplies against the Physical DMG magnified by DEF reduction.

His ult reduces the cooldown time of ally ults. With the game design shift of having physical DPS guardians have cooldown ults instead, he becomes the physical-equivalent of Kitty (though less potent). It is also beneficial to speeding up the summon condition of Top Vayne.

Mono 12

Mono 12 is a natural progression from Mono 6. The gains may seem insignificant for the upgrade cost, with level 12 only giving a 20% chance to get doubled luck stones on the ult. However, there’s also the 10% increased attack speed which increases the base attack speed (ie. gets multiplied by all other attack speed boosts), the space savings and the reduction in summon breakeven cost.

Saving space is especially important in Hell as there is no Dungeon and hence you only have 18 spaces on your board to summon and to keep guardians. Summoning a third or fourth Mono (as you might in Hard) becomes more dubious when you would rather that space go to a DPS or even a stack of 3x Hunters or Eagles for support. Being able to pack more economy into one space becomes more valuable under such circumstances.

The concept of breakeven is that you want your economy units to be getting you more value than you spent on summoning them. Mono is a luck stone eco unit, so you would want him to earn you more luck stones than he cost to summon. To calculate his breakeven cost, we will use Horn level 1 (for 25% epic roulette rate), Skull Stone level 1 (10% refund), and Gambler’s Wrist level 1 (for 10% lower tier guardian) for our calculations.

1 Wolf + 1 Tree: 2 / 0.25 x (1 - 0.10) = 7.2 luck stones
1 Demon Soldier: 1 / 0.60 - (8 x 0.10) = 0.9 luck stones

So we’re looking at 8 luck stones for Mono to breakeven. How much more you want out of your eco is dependent on your personal preference and what alternatives you could have summoned with the components, so we won’t go into that here. But earning 8 luck stones with Mono 12 will likely take you only 3/4 of the time it would with Mono 6 due to the 20% chance and the increased attack speed. So 1 Mono 12 is worth ~1.3 Mono 6s and gets better the more attack speed increase you get.

To top it off, that is before accounting for Mono’s exclusive treasure which returns MP after each ult and at the start of each wave. At level 6, it’s 2% of used MP after an ULT and 9% MP at the start of a wave. At max level, it’s 5% of used MP after an ULT and 20% MP at the start of a wave. That further shortens the time per ult increasing Mono’s eco output.

Mythic Stuns (Optional)

Why Mythic Stuns?

In general, mythic stuns are known for being at worst, weaker than Epic and Rare stuns. On pure stun output, only Graviton 12+ is compared to Electro Robots and Shock Robots (see the Stun Guide for more info). However, there are some side benefits which mythic stunners provide.

Graviton 12

Graviton is the most popular mythic stun. He has the highest stun duration and chance out of all of them. As a pure stun, he's solid. He is good for getting reliable stuns, with less population cost. (1 Mythic vs 3 Rares or Epics) He also now has an immortal form that is complementary to the mythic form.

Orc Shaman 10 Exclusive

Orc Shaman shines the most when you have his exclusive treasure. His level 12 is a decent ability, but in most games you'll (ideally) be able to get close to 200 defense reduction anyways. Because of this, the extra 30 defense reduction you get at level 12 (non-stacking) is not that impactful. However, having Orc Shaman treasure nearly doubles the frequency his attacks cause stun, and cause enemies hit by him to take 18% more physical damage. This is an incredibly powerful buff to somebody running a physical build.

Each Orc Shaman gives 20 defense reduction which even though is a slight drop from its summon components (15 from Hunter, 7.5 from Demon Soldier, 5 from Electro Robot) but comes with ranged stun and the physical damage boost. So you can fill a space you'd fill with a different stun, with a unit that does both stun, defense reduction, and boosting physical damage.

The Three Types of Immortals

We classify Immortals into three type: General DPS, Support, and Conditional. General DPS immortals may be better at wave clears or boss killing but generally do enough damage to support both to some degree. Support immortals are great at what they are intended to support. Conditional immortals should only be considered when you have built up the other more reliable options and are exploring more niche units.

Mythics or Immortals?

When should one continue building mythics and when should one rush for immortals? The baseline is to have strong mythic options for each role as mythics are more consistent to summon than immortals. The unlock order for Hard adequately covers the wave clear roles, so one should build up their boss killers (Lance 12 and Watt 12) before considering building their first immortal. That will benefit your Hell clear consistency.

See our unlock order guide here.

General DPS Immortals

Awakened Hailey

Usually the first immortal that many go for as mythic Hailey plays such a big role in the early game (pre-sb6) meta. Still very good as both a boss killer and wave clear. Becomes less powerful as sb increases (sb7+) since other immortals will start to outdamage her but still good to have. Also very useful in guild raid and PvP.

Primeval Bomba (recommended level 6)

Super solid Physical DPS immortal. Main drawback is the inconsistency of summoning it (0.1% per basic attack at max Workout stacks). The good news is increased attack speed helps. Bomba’s exclusive treasure also helps by getting to max Workout stacks earlier so you have more time to trigger the summon condition.

Dark Lord Dragon (recommended level 6)

Very good wave clear. Decent damage to bosses but dedicated boss killers still needed. Fairly easy to summon, especially with Dragon exclusive treasure.

Reaper Dian (recommended Level 6)

Strongest DPS immortal in the game. Main drawback is the inconsistency of summoning it. The default average success rate is 1 success every 8 Frogs. Even at immortal level 12, the average success rate increases to 1 success every 5.7 Frogs. And there will always be the bad RNG games with no Reaper Dian after 12+ Frogs. Failure leaves you with nothing for your efforts.

Support Immortals

Grand Mama (Recommended level 12)

Great support for Hell onwards, PvP and Guild Raid. Her +15% damage buff is great for all three. Her ult reviving dead Mythic killed by special boss effects, Chu Overclock failures and Frog curse lift failures is great for Hell onwards and PvP. Her solid ATK boost to the whole board is great for PvP, Guild Raid and stabilising early Hell / God. Her exclusive treasure helps massively in her immortal summon condition.

Chrono Ato (Recommended level 6)

Best support for Physical Damage board. Similar to the mythic form but on steroids. Increases the entire boards DEF reduction effect by +50%, increases Physical Damage based on DEF reduction level, slows and gives Physical allies extra basic attacks. Still reduces ult cooldown except now by 25% (35% at immortal level 6) and further increases Ultimate skill damage.

Super Graviton (Recommended level 6)

Really good for crowd control. Plays a different role from its mythic form which actually makes the two forms complementary. Immortal form triggers recurring stun, has slow, and a suction ult to keep enemies in the same. Plus it boosts damage taken by enemies by 10%. Mythic form has the best long stun (4.5s). Super Graviton + 1 to 2 Mythic Gravitons are a pretty solid stunlock, saving you unit capacity on stuns. Exclusive treasure is strongly recommended (at least level 6, preferably 8+) to reduce the cost of summoning Super Graviton.

Conditional Immortals

Top Vayne (Recommended level 6)

Physical boss killer, solid boss killer. Requires 200 def reduce on higher difficulties. Made for physical focused boards.

Ghost Ninja (Recommended for Phys fans)

Physical immortal which doesn’t require any Legendaries. Damage is quite unremarkable unless boosted by Chrono Ato. Summon condition is great for helping summon Chrono Ato as Ato will be reducing the cooldown of 5 Ninjas. See as a supplement to Physical boards at best.

Dr. Pulse

Magical immortal which doesn’t require any Legendaries. Sacrifices your stuns for damage which is highly unnecessary. You usually need stuns more than you need DPS. Theoretically a pretty strong boss killer if at level 12+ and fully equipped with 4 drones.

Suggested Priority for each Legendary

This is the recommended summons for each Legendary to manage your summon/merge RNG. They are generally in order of most recommended but note that if you need units of certain roles (eg. Boss Killers) then adapt to your situation and summon those as required.

Sheriff

Immortal Hailey
Lance 12 (2-3x, less or unnecessary if sb7+)
Indy 12 (subsequent Sheriffs)

Storm Giant

Tao 12 (up to 6)
Watt 12 (when you need a boss killer for W70 or W80, especially if not using Lance, summon latest by W51)
Top Vayne (when you need a battery for Chrono Ato and a boss killer)

War Machine

There's only Rocket Chu

Tiger Master

Primeval Bomba
Bomba 12

For a full list of hell mode bosses, click here.

To see specific hell mode builds, see the magic build and the physical build.