Now that you have educated yourself on the basics of the awakening system here at Inven Global, the next step would be to start building your heroes and gear for awakening. Many players will be stuck deciding which heroes should be prioritized for awakening given the high-level resources required. This will vary by account given no two accounts are the same due to the huge hero inventory in the game; however, there are some specific units that many will have that take precedence over others.

This guide will focus on defense types as awakening your tanks will provide significant sustainment to not only themselves but your team. Here are the top five I recommend awakening if you have them.

Garff

• Fatecore: Gold, Reverse World Theme
• Mark: Command
• Recommended guard stone set: Full 6 flame set

As a general rule of thumb, all General level fated heroes should be awakened first as mentioned in the awakening guide. So it comes to no surprise the Garff is included in this list. He is important to awaken due to his Command mark which requires him to have higher HP than his allies to apply his mark. Command provides an additional 20% increase to HP and Defense for your entire team as long as Garff’s max HP is higher than the rest of his allies.

Given the HP requirement, I highly recommend awakening him with a full flame type guardian stone set to increase his max HP by a total of 6,600. In addition, as the set benefits are also inherited, he will receive damage reduction increasing his value as a Share Health/Protect tank. Awakening with a full flame guard stone set will easily land Garff as the highest HP unit on your team, increasing your team’s overall survivability.

Shufraken

• Fatecore: Gold, Awakening Theme
• Mark: Fear of the Abuss
• Recommended guard stone set: Full 6 frost set

The other defense type general, Shufraken, is on this list as a priority for awakening due to his Mark requirement as well. He provides the Fear of the Abyss mark to all enemies with lower defense than himself. Given this requirement, a full 6 frost set is the best guardstone set to awaken Shufraken.

While a full flame set is viable as well, you run the risk of not applying Fear of the Abyss to enemy tanks, which gives you a significant advantage in today’s meta. Awakening him full frost will increase his total defense by 1700 which will easily place his defense above enemy teams without an opposing Shufraken.

In addition, a blue set will provide increased block which is a huge factor in preventing a one-hit KO from an enemy damage dealer. Shufraken is the best defense unit to use with fast AOE burst teams if you can awaken him to apply his mark 100% of the time.

Tantalo

• Fatecore: Gold, Banga Theme
• Mark: None
• Recommended guard stone set: Full 6 flame set

Tantalo is a legendary type hero that has the Block type passive. He also has a very rare gold type fatecore which has been recently upgraded, which gives him more value as an awakening target. As none of his abilities scale from his defense, the best guardstone set to awaken him with is a full flame set.

The HP bonus combined with the damage reduction is too strong to pass on a tank. Some may consider frost, but I highly discourage this as he will have more sustainability with higher HP. Due to signature force being more prevalent in the higher ranks of PVP, the level 1 signature force enhancement that adds elemental damage ignores defense.

Having additional pure damage makes HP more relevant and defense less desired for your tank. This applies to most tanks excluding Shufraken and FC Luke. Tantalo is no exception especially provokes with his passive.

Luke

• Fatecore: Black, Banga Theme
• Mark: None
• Recommended guard stone set: Full 6 flame set or Full 6 frost set (if fatecore is equipped)

Luke is another legendary Block type tank that has a fatecore that is part of the Banga family like Tantalo. Similar to the others listed so far, having a fatecore makes him a more desirable unit to awaken.

Being a legendary type, he is easier to recruit than the other fated types on this list. His base defense is significantly higher than Garff and Shufraken as well. That said, given his already high base defense, awakening him with a full flame set is highly recommended for the same reasons mentioned above. Having higher max HP will greatly increase any units survival now that Signature Force has such a huge impact on damage. In addition, his skill set is more geared toward a higher HP pool.

He has the Block passive increasing his chances of being hit, and his active 2 is a Share Health ability which increases his max HP by a percentage of his HP. Due to all those reasons, using a full flame set is required for his standard legendary form. However, if you are lucky enough to pull his fatecore, his skill 2 adds a defense buff that increases defense to the party by a percentage of his defense. With that in mind, using a full frost set for the increased defense will be a viable set for him.

Degas

• Fatecore: Black, Summer Festa Theme
• Mark: None
• Recommended guard stone set: Full 6 flame set

The last on our list is the legendary hero Degas. Similar to the others on this list he does have a fatecore available and has the Block passive. His skillset is similar to Luke’s but he has the same base stats as Tantalo. His active 1 is a Share Health type of skill that increases his max HP and shares damage with the entire party.

That said, there is no other reason not to awaken him on a full flame set. In contrast to Luke, his fatecore does not provide any buffs based on his base stats, so adding more defense will not benefit him as much as HP. However, his fatecore does provide frost damage immunity for one turn so he is a good anti-cleave type tank to use against teams with Bathory/Bernadette/Valentina. If he is your only tank, do not hesitate to make him one of your first units to awaken.

That wraps up our top 5 defense types to Hero Awaken, I would also like to add Uloom as an honorable mention as she has a very good fatecore as well. However, I wanted to include units that would be more common for free-to-play players, and the 3 legendary types are much easier to recruit than Uloom. In addition, the common trend here is to awaken with a full flame set. In my opinion, full flame set awakenings are the strongest given the damage reduction and huge HP increase.

This really applies to all classes unless there’s a hero with a skill that scales of a specific stat such as fatecore Luke’s active 2 skill. I hope this guide will help your decision making in the future when building units. Ultimately, you can choose who and how you want to build your units, but these five will definitely not disappoint.