I noticed that there isn't much of a conversation about nimble quest strategy on the web so i figured I'd do my best to get the ball rolling. Who am I to tell you how to play? Well, I currently have all of the available characters and have each of them leveled up to 2 stars and I have done so without spending a dime of real life money.

Update 6/23/13: I currently have 16 of 16 characters upgraded to three stars and have still not purchased red gems.

I'm just going to go ahead and talk about ideas that I have so far based on my limited experience on this brand new game. I encourage you to let me know what you know and correct anything that you feel is wrong, or even confirm my hypotheses and strengthen theories. And of course, don't be rude and steal this without giving credit.





Power-ups

In the shop you may have discovered the handful of power-ups which can enhance your teams effectiveness in battle. I would strongly urge you to fight the temptation you may have to spend your hard earned gems on leveling up your heroes and instead spend them on these power-ups first. I already have them maxed out, but I feel like the order in which I did it was probably the best way to go. I kept them all at the same level, but the order in each level stayed the same. First i would suggest that you go for the treasure chest. Having a field full of gems will help you to do two things: one is it will get you more gems so that you can upgrade power-ups even faster and two is you can use those gems to heal your lead hero and be a little more aggressive in your fighting. If you plan your route along the blue gems you will find yourself with a temporary supply of unlimited health.





Next would be the magnet to help you to pick up the goodies found in the chests. Without it, it would be impossible to pick up all those gems, and again it will help you to upgrade everything else even faster. Whatever upgrades you choose next would probably come down to your personal play-style. If you like to go in and kick ass then you should go for the attack power up or the bomb power up. If you are more reserved and hang back with lightly armored ranged characters, maybe you should pick the health potion or ice first. Either way, every single power up will help every single play style. So don't hoard those gems, spend lots and spend often until you max out every single one. Doing so will make every play through so much easier on you and your heroes and you will then be able to focus on leveling up those heroes.













Before you have maxed out your power-ups, you should only be leveling up heroes by the "experience" they receive by killing enemies. You always have the option to spend gems on an upgrade, but i strongly urge you not to do it until you have those power-ups maxed as that is a far better use of your gems that will benefit the entire team rather than a single individual.

However, once you have maxed out those power-ups, go ahead and start focusing those gems towards improving each of your heroes. The strategy here is similar to that of leveling up power-ups in that you want to do it evenly. To level up from 0 to 1 star it costs 1k gems, from 1 to 2 is 10k, and from 2 to 3 it costs a whopping 100k. There are currently 15 heroes available and if you had each of them and wanted to upgrade each of them to level 1 it would cost you only 15k to do so. However choosing 1 hero and making that individual hero level two would cost a total of 11k. So you can see here that it would make the most sense to level up heroes evenly, just like the power-ups. Start by leveling them up to 1, then when each hero is level 1 move on to leveling up to 2 and so on. I currently have my heroes at level 2 and am still racking up gems to make someone level 3.

Update: As of version 1.0.3 the three star upgrade has been reduced from 100k to 40k.

As far as who you should level first is also an issue that you have to deal with. The way i felt was best was to go for ranged characters if their upgrade involved improving on their range, missile speed, attack rate, etc. i have found that utilizing ranged characters is the best way to keep the party safe from harm, they are the first defense against incoming threats and they should be beefed up first to keep those threats away. I think that gizmo is currently the best support character and it seems that his upgraded bombs do the most damage and keep the team very safe. I was sure to upgrade him and characters like him first. And next would be armor upgrades, which are also important, but they don't keep enemies away. They simply keep the party alive longer while the enemies move in. Staying alive is indeed important in this game, but I still feel that attacking is the best way to go when choosing who to upgrade first.

I still have yet to figure out who would be best to level up at the third star level and would appreciate any input on the matter. It seems that some characters gain some pretty cool abilities, such as Hydra's ability to freeze on hit or Gizmo's ability to explode upon death.

Update 5/7/13: I upgraded 9 of my characters so far and am a strong proponent of upgrading ranged characters first. This is purely because of my playstyle of course and does not have to apply to you. I enjoy having the attack rate increase of arcane as it produces a machine gun effect of blue electricity balls when fully buffed with the attack buff and power up. I find the range increases of Merida, Kishi, and Blaze to be very useful as they are almost like having an attack rate increase. They start attacking enemies in the distance much sooner and they get the chance to initiate more attacks and as a result enemies die much sooner. It's also amazing to have Faenel and Hydra's root and freeze on hit which serve as both an offensive and defensive tactic. They make enemies stand still so they become easy targets and they also keep the party safer by stopping enemies from attacking the party. This is again because I enjoy utilizing ranged characters (even if I am leading with a close ranged hero). You may prefer to increase attack rate or damage on characters like Bones or Slash. Or you may wish to increase armor on already heavily armored heroes like Ulrich or Gurzog. Whatever you decide, I would suggest that you level up similarly typed abilities in order. For example, if you like to hold down your enemies with Faenel and Hydra, then you should upgrade them both first, because you have to keep in mind that picking up these heroes in your party (when you aren't leading with them of course) is left to chance. Having two of them available increases your chances of picking up at least one. And to top it all off, having them both together makes for a very effective team that can hold down enemies left and right.

Update:

And as Albicant-atrous pointed out to me, each kill will take off two gems from the upgrade purchase price. So the 1k upgrade from 0 to 1 stars is also equivalent to 500 kills. The 10k upgrade from 1 to 2 stars is equivalent to 5000 kills. And the 100k upgrade from 2 to 3 stars is equivalent to 50k kills. However, I think that you will find that you will consistantly be earning far more gems than kills on each play through. At my current skill level and with my team of level 2 heroes, a good run would earn me about 4-5k gems and 1k kills (equal to 2k gems). So I would say that the kills will serve as a great supplement for leveling up heroes, but ultimately it will come down to gems.













If you haven't already, join a guild. If you aren't that strong of a player I would recommend checking the top ten guilds in the arena and joining one of the lower ranked guilds within the top ten so that you have a fighting chance. I haven't figured it fully, but it seems that as long as you are in a guild in the top ten at the end of a competition and if you are in the top 30 individuals within your guild, you will be rewarded with 30 tokens. And even if you don't make it you will be rewarded with at least 3 tokens for even competing. If you have a better understanding of how this works, please enlighten me and the rest of the community.





Tokens

These valuable little circular golden coins seem to have a very unpredictable and a very low drop rate. Because of this, the mere sight of one on the ground makes your heart skip a beat as you rush over to quickly grab it before it is too late. And because of it's rarity you may be tempted to hoard them and never spend them. You may be partially right, but I say there are a few times when you want to spend them: buffs in regular play, buffs in arena, and as continues.

When using these bad boys as buffs in regular play you should always keep in mind that they will last throughout this entire game. Once you spend it, it will stay with you until you die. So, it is advisable to spend a token early on. I personally like to spend one on attack right away. You may be thinking to yourself that these should be reserved for continues, but I say that buffing up before a difficult level may even prevent you from having to resort to spending one on a continue.

Buffs should be used in the arena because the tokens that you spend here may result in a huge payoff in the end. I've been competing in the #nimblebit guild and it seems that if you are at least in one of the top ten guilds at the end of a competitionand you are ranked in the top 30 within your guild, you will receive a reward of 30 freaking tokens. So on a good ranking run where you spent 5 tokens to get fully buffed up before hand, you could potentially earn 6 times what you spent on that one run. I'd say that's a pretty good investment. Don't get too hung up on the 5 tokens that you spend if you are getting that huge payoff in the end.

And finally there are the continues. You may find yourself on a play through and you make it to the graveyard, but you get distracted and run yourself into a gravestone. Out of frustration you may want to spend that one token to get back in the game and redeem yourself. Thinking to yourself "meh, it's just a token." Well, think again! In case you haven't noticed, the cost of each continue doubles after you buy one. First it's one token, then two, then four, then eight, etc. so buying that continue on level two is not really worth it. What if that ends up being a good run and you make it to your personal best and you want to pass that best. The next continue will cost two tokens, then four, etc. you lost yourself that first one token continue and you could have had a cheaper run if you had just sucked up your pride and decided to quit and start over. On the other hand, if you are having a good run, you are nice and buffed, and you are at that level where you are about to unlock that next character, I would say that that is the time to spend some tokens on continues. Set a limit and stick to it. Maybe you'll spend up to four tokens on a continue and if you don't make it by that time you'll give it up and get'em next time.









In the beginning you will find yourself low on tokens and you don't want to spend tokens on all four buffs on each and every run do you? Well, that's why I tried to figure out which ones are the most important so that I could decide to spend one or two tokens on the most valuable buffs. This is not a rigid list and it could easily change based on personal preference, playstyle, different lead characters etc.

The way I currently rank buffs by importance is

1. Attack

2. Swiftness

3. Vitality

4. Shield

Why you ask? Well let me explain:

Attack is number one in my heart because so far I have found that the old cliché "the best defense is a good offense," has proven to be true. Having the valuable attack boost helps to fend off enemies and keep your team safer than a 25% increase of health.

Swiftness is a close second for a similar reason. Although i find it more useful for close range attack leaders. Using a character like Slash requires you to move in close, but that also puts him at risk of getting hit. And his light armor is not exactly ideal in that predicament. So, it becomes quite convienient to have swiftness handy so that he can move in, strike first, and get out. It serves as both an attacking and a defending buff all wrapped in one token. Sometimes I might switch swiftness with vitality if i use a slow-attacking, ranged character like hydra. For some reason i find her difficult to use at high speeds and swiftness becomes a burden. Characters like that perform better by attacking from a distance, not charging in head to head.

Vitality comes in third because it is a valuable thing to have. The 25% increase in health is valuable to keep the team alive long enough to pick up the randomly dropped life saving bomb or revitalizing health potion. However, in my opinion it is not as valuable as having the attack boost. If you only bought this buff I think you would be less likely to do much damage and grab that much needed random drop than if you had only bought an attack buff. The thing that makes it better than the shield is that it helps every single party member, unlike the shield.

Last, and most definitely least, is the shield. It's a great thing to have, but compared to the other permanent buffs, this one is temporary. And compared to the other buffs which boost each and every party member, this shield only helps your leader. Granted, helping the leader is logical since he is the most important party member, but you can see how compared to the others, this one is the least valuable.

Update: My sister pointed out something to me about the fast forward buff; the special buff that i did not include in this section. It is important to note that the fast forward buff will do a few things. It will let you skip the level you were about to play, it will give you a new hero if you have room for one (and is therefore already superior to the "add a hero" option), and the one thing that my sister brought to my attention is that it gives you the kills that you would have gotten in that level. After learning this fact, i did some research to find out how many enemies were in each level. I found that each level contains 15 more enemies than the last. Forest 1 contains 15 enemies, graveyard 1 contains 30, sewer 1 contains 45, etc. So with this new information i would say that you could use this buff as: 1. A way to skip to your personal best level and fill up your party so that you have the best chances of beating that level Or 2. A way to "buy" kills and upgrade a hero faster than actually playing through levels. (However, it should be kept in mind that the early levels are probably not worth your hard earned tokens.)



Update: 6/23/2013 added Attack Formations and Tactics section

Attack Formations and Tactics

I personally have found that it is important to protect the rear of your party. With 1-11 members i usually find a simple looping box to do the trick and this also allows members to attack in different directions. I like to utilize ranged characters over melee characters to keep my party at a safe distance from enemies. Because some characters have a limited forward facing attacks (i.e. Merida, Uther, Boomey)

I sometimes use a staircase attack when facing enemies (as opposed to either a head-on attack or running along side an enemy). This allows those forward attacking enemies multiple opportunities to attack the enemy while still not charging in head first.

And finally, once I have about 12+ characters, I like to combine the two formations and create a looping staircase diamond. Sometimes it looks like the outline of a plus sign if the staircase "steps" are large. This allows for a good overall party defense by protecting the vulnerable rear and also allows for a great attack for using those limited forward attack characters so that they may also attack in any direction (like gizmo, arcane and many others). Furthermore, I generally utilize these tactics from sides and corners to keep one or two sides of my party safe and to focus attacks more in one direction. But once I pick up an attack power up or ice, then I move into the center and become more aggressive. I'm of course also willing to dive in a swarm of enemies for a Bomb if needed.



ITimako (talk) 20:58, April 14, 2013 (UTC)