Heroes vs. Hordes Talent Guide

Chris "Kolz" Kolmar 1/31/2025

Hello heroes, Kolz here. Today, I will walk you through the talent system in Heroes vs. Hordes.

In this guide, I'll go through:

How to unlock talents
The priorities between talents
And what each talent does in game

Some data and images sourced from the HvH spreadsheet.

What Are Talents?

You can spend gold to increase your overall talent level. Each additional talent level costs increasingly more gold.

There are 1000 talent levels in Heroes vs Hordes.

Talents are the building block of the game. Each talent level increases the power level of your heroes.

Optimizing these is how you progress through the game, do more damage and clear higher-level chapters.

There are six tiers of talent rarity that go from Heroic to Common. Heroic is extremely rare, with about a 1 in 300 chance from a talent pull. Down to Common, which are...common.

You unlock talents by clicking the unlock button at the bottom of the talent screen. When you click the unlock button, you get a slot machine and it will display three talents.

Talents Priorities

There's a simple rule of thumb for choosing which talent to select from the three provided:

Choose the highest tier talent offered to you.
If you only get Common talents, select anything but damage or health unless you're in the early game. Early in the game, you want to put a couple of points in damage, let's say through level 30 or 40.
Then choose damage until maxed.
Then choose health until maxed.

You'll frequently be given the option of choosing between three common talents: health, damage, and one other. Early in the game, you want to choose damage, let's say, through level 30 or 40. After that point, you want to switch over to max every other talent in the tier except for damage and health.

Here's why

Each point in damage increases your damage by five percentage points. That adds up in the early game, going from, let's say five to ten, is doubling the amount of damage, but makes a smaller difference later in the game.

If you have to choose between several talents of the same tier, certain ones are better than others, and I'll go through those in each tier section.

Review Of Every Talent

I'm going to run you through all the different talents. Some of these aren't entirely clear, and it'll make playing the general game more understandable for you.

Common Tier

Damage. Damage is what it sounds like. It adds more damage to your hero's attacks. It adds five percentage points for every talent level. But this is not multiplying, so each additional five percentage points is worth less than the previous five.
So going from five to ten doubles, but going from a thousand to a thousand and five adds nothing. Therefore, damage is more important early in the game.
Health. Every point in health increases your health by ten. Health is the least valuable talent in the game because you shouldn't be getting hit by the horde. There are certain game modes where you do, but for the vast majority of early-game players, if you're getting hit by a horde, something has gone horribly wrong.
Regeneration.Regeneration replenishes your health per minute. So, if you get hit by a horde, this is how you heal.
Armor. Armor reduces the damage you take from horde if you get hit by them.
Evasion. Evasion prevents you from being hit by the horde, which is super important. It's better not to take any damage than to reduce your damage.
Movement speed. Movement speed increases your movement speed.
Bonus XP. Bonus XP increases the amount of experience you get from each of the experience orbs that drop on the map. Any more experience per orb lets you level up faster.
Coins. Coins add more coins at the end of your run when you're offered a reward or anytime you're offered coins in the game.
Pickup. And pickup increases your pickup range. You need to run towards a map to pick up something on it. With increased pickup range, you don't have to get as close, and pickup range lets you stay away from the horde.

Common Tier Priority

General rule of thumb is anything but damage or health > damage > health.

If you're given the option of multiple common talents early in the game, bonus XP, coins, and movement speed are of higher priority.

Then pickup, armor, and evasion.

Regeneration is last. Again, because you shouldn't be getting hit by horde generally.

Great Tier Talents

The great talents are a bit more complicated, but most follow a similar theme. The status effect damage is mulitplicative. So, it multiplies your base damage instead of adding to it. That makes these more valuable than common; you're doing multiplicative damage instead of additive damage.

Damage Reflection. Damage reflection is the first one. Damage reflection is what it sounds like. If a horde hits you, they take the damage they've dealt plus some amount. Horde shouldn't be hitting you, so damage reflection isn't all that important.
Damage To Frozen. Next is damage to frozen. If you freeze a horde, say with ice wand, you'll do additional damage to them with this talent.
Damage To Burning. Damage to burning is the same concept. If you can burn a horde, say through the fire wizard's abilities, they'll take additional damage from every other source of damage you do.
Damage To Poison. Damage to poison has a similar effect. Someone like the assassin or poison darts will apply poison to the horde, and then your hero does increased damage.
Damage To Slow. Increases the damage to slowed horde.
Damage To Stunned. Increases the damage to stunned horde.
Physical Damage. Increases your damage from physical sources. Certain weapons like crossbows and bombs only do physical damage. You can tell what type of damage a weapon does in the forge.
Magical damage. Increases your damage from magical sources. Certain weapons like ice wand and chain lightning only do magical damage. You can tell what type of damage a weapon does in the forge.
Power-up Duration. Power-up duration impacts the length you'll have a power-up if you find it on the battlefield. Those are the items covered in ice, and if you break them out, you get special powers like rage. It'll last longer if you get one of those with this increased power-up duration.
Revive Rage. Revive rage is an interesting concept. If the horde end up getting to you in a run, you come back to life with rage for a certain amount of time to get your revenge.

Great Tier Priority

If you're offered multiple great tier talents in the same spin, revive rage is your number one priority. Then physical and magical damage will offer the most consistent benefit, followed by all the status effects.

Of the status effect, some are easier to apply than others. Frozen is much more common than stunned. So, I would value frozen and burning relative to poisoned, stunned, and slowed.

Power-up duration next, and damage reflection is the least important.

Rare Tier Talents

Projectile Speed. Each talent and projectile speed increases the speed by two percentage points.
Projectile speed is how fast the projectiles move on the battlefield. Think crossbow arrows or ice wand little orbs.
Area Of Effect. Each point in the area of effect talent increases area effect by two percentage points.Area of effect impacts the area in which a spell will have an impact on the playing field. This is a really important talent and the highest priority in this tier. It mostly impacts things like fire orbs and bombs, which are core to most builds, and gets big damage boosts from an increased area of effect. It also impacts a lot of primary weapons for heroes.
Effect Duration. Each talent point in effect duration is a two percentage point increase. This impacts how long anything lasts on the battlefield and therefore does more damage. Think like the arcane wand or crossbow projectiles.
Crticial Strike. One talent in critical strike increases your critical strike chance by one percentage point. Critical strikes deal two times as much damage as a regular attack. It can also be multiplied by four times with rogue gloves and necklace. That means critical strike chance can greatly boost your damage output.
Scroll Bonus %. One talent and a scroll bonus gives you one percent point more scrolls at the end of a run. Scrolls are used to increase the power of your gear.
It's important to know with scrolls and upgrading your gear that upgrading one piece in one slot, for example, one helm, upgrades it for all the helms across all the different sets. So you want to use your scrolls as soon as you can. There is no downside to upgrading a piece of gear via a scroll.
Hero Orb Bonus %. Extra hero orbs per run are similar to scrolls. Hero orbs are used to level up your heroes. One talent point in a hero orb per run increases the number of hero orbs you get by one percentage point at the end of a run. Early in the game, extra orbs are partocuarly helpful because leveling up your heroes quickly improves their power.
Dust Bonus %. And lastly in the farm line, there's extra dust per run. Dust is used to craft jewels in the shop, and one percent extra dust per run increases the amount of dust you get at the end of the run by, you guessed it, one percentage point. As you move later into the game, dust becomes more important relative to the other two currencies..
Power Up Spawn Chance. These are the same powerups impacted by power-up duration. This gives you a better chance of finding a power-up on the battlefield.

Rare Tier Talent Priority

I don't think I ever saw two rare or higher talents in the same spin, but if you do, here are the priorities.

The most important talents in this tier are area effect followed by critical strike. I'd follow that up with the two other damage talents - projectile speed and effect duration

Next, Hero Orbs > Dust > Scrolls.

And then power up spawn chance.

Epic Tier Talents

Epics are getting even rarer, as you can guess.

Damage Muliplier On Missing Health. The first epic talent is extra damage per percent missing health. This means that you start doing additional damage for every little bit of health you lose in the game. Unfortunately, like I've said half a dozen times already, you're not supposed to be taking damage in Heroes vs. Hordes, so this one isn't terribly valuable.
Cooldown. Cooldown is one of the most important talents in the game. Each point in cooldown increases your cooldown percent by two percentage points. Reducing your cooldown is the best way to increase your DPS
Damage Multiplier To Elites And Bosses. Like the name says, You do more damage to elites and bosses, the big guys that spawn mid-chapter or at the end of a chapter. It's 0.2x damage for each point in the talent.
Extra Upgrades In Chest. Extra upgrades in chest are for when you loot a chest from an elite, you have an extra chance of getting a second item in that chest. It also applies to the end of wave clear chest if you have the noble set bonus or looter jewels..
Silver Key Chance. And lastly, there's a chance of an extra silver key. Really helpful for farming. It increases your silver key chance by one percentage point at the end of each run. Like damage, each point is worth less than the previous.

Epic Tier Talent Priority

You're entering the territory of 1 in 1,000+ chance to get multiple epics in the same spin, but it could happen.

In terms of priority in this tier, it's cooldown 100%, followed by an extra chance to silver keys for farming.

Then damage to elites and bosses > damage to missing hp > extra upgrades in chest.Legendary Tier Talents Talents legendary

Next up, we're into legendary. These are extremely rare. I want to say like one in a hundred chance of getting one of them.

Increase To Projectiles Magical. Each point increases the count by 1. Increases the number of projectiles from all magical weapons. Magic weapons include things like ice wand and arcane wand.
Increase To Projectiles.Each point increases the count of both physical and magical weapons by 1. Clearly better than the other two similarly named talents.
Increase To Projectiles Physical. Each point increases the count by 1. Increases the number of projectiles from all physical weapons. Physical weapons include things like bombs and crossbow.
+1 Starting Upgrade. Plus one starting upgrade increases the number of weapons you begin a ruin with. Particularly valuable in Arena and Guild Events.
Increase To Gold Keys. Finally, there's the chance for extra gold keys at the end of the run. Again, it is super valuable for farming. To give you a sense of how much more valuable legendary talents are than epic, a gold key is worth about six silver keys.

Epic Tier Talent Priority

You should never see any legendaries together, but if you get unlucky, here's my priority:.

+1 starting upgrade > projectiles > physical projectives > magical projectiles > gold keys.

Heroic Tier Talents

2500 words later, here we are at Heroic Talents.

I have been extraordinarily lucky in getting all three heroic talents before level 800. I had all three of them around talent level 750.

These are about a 1 in 300 roll from what I can tell, and there are a lot of people with 900 plus talent level that only have two, one, or none. They are very hard to get, but if you don't get them, you can still progress very far into the game.

That said, you'll definitely feel a boost in your damage when you get one, especially early in the game.

1.5x Physical Damage. Physical damage here is a multiple of 1.5. Where as it was additive in previous tiers, this it's huge. 1.5 times physical damage only applies to weapons that deal physical damage.
1.5x Magical Damage. Magic damage here is a multiple of 1.5. You can go back to the details screen and check out your magical damage from the great tier to see the relative impact..
1.25x Damage. Damage multiplies your literal "damage" number, not physical or magical. Damage is different than physical damage, which is different from magical damage.