Returners is a great game where you can play against monsters or other players by combining different heroes and gear sets. The core of the game is to find the best hero composition and best gear for these heroes; Nimi118, the dedicated Returners player and administrator of the Returners Discord/Guild ‘Asiaover9000’, wrote an in-depth guide for help other players with finding those compositions and gear sets. We had the chance to interview Nimi118 and asked him various things, like how he came to write such guide and tips on playing Returners!

Hello! Could you briefly introduce yourself?

I'm Nimi118. I am the administrator for the Returners Discord and guild leader of Asiaover9000. I have been playing since the launch of Returners and decided to make a guide for the Discord community because I gained favor from them in regards to knowledge about this game. I decided to make an Asian guild to gather strong people for the upcoming guild battles as well. I am always competitive and give my 100% to games that I love and this is one of them.

What does ‘Asiaover9000’ refer to?

That is the guild I made on the Asian server. I made this guild because I wanted to gather strong powers in the Asian server for the guild battle system and for the champion league raid boss. It's going to be the biggest guild in Asia because most of the big players are going to be in there. We already have one of the top 5 players, Zeno, in it! :)

The name is a meme name and the meme is from the anime ‘Dragonball Z’ when Vegeta scans Goku’s power level and exclaims that it's over 9000, signifying his strength, haha.

How did you get to know Returners and how long have you played? Also, what rank are you?

I got to know Returners through the Google Play Store pre-register system. This game was made by Nexon so I thought I would give it a try.

My player rank is 88. My Arena rank is always top 50 for rewards but I am in the Champion league. And my server rank right now is 72.

Why were you interested in games made by Nexon?

I am interested because I was really hooked into their games made for the computer beforehand. Like Combat Arms and MapleStory.

Did you ever write guides like the one you wrote for Returners for other games?

Nope. This is my first ever guide. I was very nervous about making this because I didn't know how it would turn out. I'm glad it turned out awesome :)

The ‘Nimi118’s Returners Guide’ has been helping other Returners players immensely. Did you have any motive for making this guide? And how was the process?

Haha, thanks for the compliment! :) My motive was that a lot of people wanted this guide and I was very motivated to get the information that I was gathering and still am gathering out there to them. The process was a long and slow one and still is ongoing. I had various help for the labor work from the awesome Discord community. I was also criticized heavily on some aspects of the guides, especially the tier list for heroes.

The guide was just a hero tier list at first but ended up being something way more than that. After getting requested a lot to do BiS for heroes gear sets, I decided to make that extensive BiS list, which is still not done for supports yet.

And again, I had tons of help for the labor part of this guide (filling in numbers) but I did all the informative comments and BiS slots and tiers.

It must not have been easy to organize the hero tier list. What standard did you use to organize the list?

Yeah, it was no easy task to organize from the beginning. I basically just made a codex in Google sheet form at first so I had that layout in front of me. The tier list then became a checkmark system for what heroes are checked for what mode. And they had their final cumulative tier from D-S+ at the end, averaging out their efficiency in all modes. At the end of it all, I wanted a comment section where I put my thoughts into perspective so people can see why I rated the hero as such and a chance for them to criticize my thinking or tier more effectively. The tier list was then later revamped to the current one because of an awesome suggestion from a Discord member. I have it set up like how you guys have it for a tier in specific game modes. The tiers are based on the heroes efficiency and usage and "OP"-ness in each mode.

Is there any team composition you think is that best, given that they are equipped well?

Honestly, that question has been asked quite frequently by the Discord members. There is no way for me to give an easy answer to that because this game has infinite team comps that you can play out and they all differ with each meta. Right now though, the meta is ranger city and physical defense and physical attack teams so if you were to make an anti-physical attack or anti-ranger teams, you would do quite well in the meta. Or make a mage wombo combo team. In regards to team comp as well, be sure to have teams that have solid tags as well. Having a 18% or 21% tag team is very beneficial against your opponent.

Do you have any favorite hero?

I would say Taejo. Taejo can 1 shot an equally geared support and 3-4 shot tanks with his Launcher set BiS.

(My colleague says he just got Jumong and wants to know if he is okay, too)

Jumong is average for League. Above average for Arena. OP in Raid and PvE. 

If you were to recommend 3 heroes that are so good that you would even use Bluestones to get them, who would they be?

Honestly, I suggest not getting any heroes with Bluestone except Nikola Tesla and Dr. Jekyll because all the heroes are obtainable by just playing the game, even Cleopatra to an extent. But Nikola Tesla and Dr. Jekyll are Bluestone-locked so you have to pay for them and they are worth the 3k expense.

How you organized information on the gear is amazing. It must not have been easy to organize it; are there any special rules of thumb when it came to choosing what gear goes best with what hero?

It was more difficult than the hero tier list. Honestly, the rule is that you have to make a gear set for the hero's strengths. You need gear that can make that specific hero meta OP. For example, Cleopatra is very good because of her skill 2 so you want Skill Cooldown to make her spam that more.

Under the assumption that I don’t have any Legendaries, what gear part should I choose first for each class if I get a Legendary gear draw?

It takes a long time to get BiS sorted. For gear parts, you want to save at least 2-3; choose your own Legendaries before going all in for a BiS. The choices depend on if you have a Combine event coming up for the BiS gear, or, you got lucky from the gear draws, Legend re-rolling, or gacha.

For example, I wanted to get the full Launcher set for Taejo and I got lucky from a Legend re-roll as I received Launcher Boots and Launcher Ring. I had 2 Choose My Gear available so I can get the pieces that I'm missing, so now I'm just waiting for another Launcher piece that is not a duplicate. I will be able to use my 2 Choose Legend chests to finish off the BiS.

Then what factor should I consider while choosing gear when I don’t have suitable gear for my heroes?

Consider choices like what gear best makes the hero OP. For example, if you don't have the full Monarch set, you can use the Mysterious Labyrinth 5-set as a Rare replacement.

Well, we have this guild and Discord member who has been playing the game since the launch as well and his CP is at 61k (very low) and he is in Champion league. He beats players who are 20k+ CP above him easily although he has Rare gear for 4/5 of his heroes; his team comp and tags are magnificent and this is why he keeps winning.

I only have 6 pieces of Legendary gear. It is hard to get the rest of the set pieces. Should I upgrade whatever Legendaries I have or should I use the gear with set effects or the ones that have more Stars? Or does it differ depending on the Legendaries?

Always upgrade Legendaries to 6-Star. If they are not usable, you can always re-roll for a 5-Star Legendary. You can always combine them away for Combiner event like the one ongoing or for 5-Star Legendary re-rolls.

There are times I find it hard to play against other players’ League teams when I am promoted to a higher league. There are also times I can’t make any further progress in Adventure mode when I can’t defeat a boss. Are there any tips you can share with us, like ways to increase team CP quickly or any way to overcome the CP gap?

In regards to Adventure: there is no rush for Adventure. It's mostly gear check and you get gear by just playing the game. I have not done the Adventure in a month because I'm waiting until my heroes are decked out with broken gear so I can just one shot it. As for the League, I never had that issue until now in the Champion league. The Champion league took a lot of us by surprise, especially the amount of players in that league (40 players is ridiculous). So my advice for that is try to stay in the league you are in and basically try not to get demoted. If you are able to reach the Tourney then I would definitely demote to a lower league because the Tourney rewards outweigh the League rewards, especially since you know that you can win 1st in a tournament.

CP is gained by just playing the game. You can always set milestones for CP gain but CP isn't a huge thing to worry about; results in League and Raids are more of an instrument to use for success.

You can also force yourself to stay within a league by only playing just below the required CP to promote so you don't get promoted to next league and stay in your current one.

We are almost there -- is there anything you would like from Returners in the future?

Yes, there is a lot I want from Returners in the future and I really hope they implement it. I would like to see Arena changes because the current system is not fun nor is it interactive; it’s more of a click fast enough and pray to win for the last 5 mins rather than a stretched out process of winning.

The Raid system also needs a revamp because the whole hitting raid bosses early is a cheese thing to do and many people don't get to reach 25% because of that mechanic. Raid bosses also need a boost in HP as well.

There needs to be a private message system set up so we can direct message someone in the game because, right now, there is not a single way to contact anyone specifically in the game, which is a totally negative and hurts the games in-game community a lot.

The chat needs to be revamped and more easily viewable and accessible.

Having 40 people in the Champion league needs to be like the other servers where they only have 14 people in a league instead of 40. I do not know why the Asia server has 40 people in a league...

The gacha rates, even for Legendary events, are a total downer as people do not get Legendaries as often as they should from them.

The community events and F2P atmosphere for the game has to remain the same because that is the driving focus for this game and I love the game for it.

The glitches need to be fixed, there are still quite a few of them.

Null cards in the League need to be revamped because of their broken effects.

Keep the hero buffs/nerfs coming because they help balance out the game.

Introduce new content and less "paywall" heroes like Nikola Tesla and Dr. Jekyll.

Also, there needs to be a less tedious way to play the Specter Chase instead of switching gear 24/7 and taking a long time to get it done.

And there needs to be an option to make selected teams for each specific match in the League.

Advertise this game more because this game is literally fun and the events are awesome to be a part off and the community is stellar. This game just lacks the gaming population it needs to sustain itself, so it needs players badly.

Lastly, keep doing a fantastic job with this game, Nexon, because it’s great and has been great so far! :D

Lastly, is there anything you would like to add?

I am very glad that I found the Returners Discord and glad that it turned into a really great community for Returners. I am very happy with the community and have fun every day in the
Discord. This is the permanent link to the Discord for any and all to join and learn and meme this game as a community :D https://discordapp.com/invite/MBGDqbT

I would also like to thank everyone who had and is currently working on the Returners guide with me and I hope I get it finished in due time. I would like to also invite everyone who is a dedicated Returner in the Asia server to my guild, Asiaover9000 as we are getting ready for guild battles for the near future. Lastly, I would like to thank Inven Global for giving me this publicity and being a really great esports page for me to share my guides and guild on, and being able to get my thoughts out there for the Returner gaming community as a whole. Thank you all :)