Maul is a beast and if you can get him to awaken 5 it only cost 17 instead of 21 to put him on field. I would invest in maul and Idril now cause they can carry you in a lot of the early and mid game play. Maul is great for crowd control.
In the equipment page you can view the stats, equipment set and artifacts people use on the hero by clicking on the "lightning, helmet and shield" button below the armor slot and select "View Statistics". :) Tamarinne is a top tier PVE healer, you use her everywhere, recomend you finish her recruit connection! good game! The re skin hero you mentioned (Mercedes), they are different heroes with diferent skillsets, although they are the "same" person
Forge pass for you would probably be a good buy, the 2 kits may be of use but the materials you get enable you to make harder to get gear - in my humble opinion
I look at shards as the currency instead of lottery tickets. You can buy yourself something from the tournament with them. You can buy fusion or a guaranteed champion (for 120-180 shards). This way you don't just flush them down the toilet.
You almost always want speed on your boots. Try to sqeeze speed out of each peace of gear. Your sweet spot on speed should be around 200 or at least 150.
By focusing on 12-3 brutal and avoiding trying to focus on events until I get my teams leveled up is how I have been doing it. Since learning to best ways but that's what i have so far
Oh, no. Don't buy keys for Iron Twins. It's a total waste, especialy since you can only farm stage 2. It's a waste even on stage 20. Just dump extra energy there if you feel like it but don't spend gems on them. Totaly not worth it.
There's realy no need to rush Arbiter missions. Just keep in mind that the last couple of missions will be "upgrade any affinity bonus to lvl 10 in your Great Hall" and "clear each dungeon on stage 20 on AUTO 10 times", which is a long shot in your case. The sooner you start farming arena, the better. Keep those medals comming.
It's a good idea to take this game slow. It's not a sprit, more like a marathon where you need to manage your rss very carefully. Preserve everything and use rss only if absolutly necessary.
You have damage in Kael and support in Rector. Skeuramis should be your next focus. Really good crowd control will be great for progression and he is HP based so you can build him tanky
Focus on getting yourself an arena team and start working on Great Hall. It's very easy, you can get it going for free in no time. You don't even need to lvl them up (leave them at 40). Just make sure your Nuker is strong. 1. Khatun (day 30 login champ) - speed booster 2. Spirit Host (farmable from campaign) - boost dmg 3. Warmaiden (farmable from campaign) - drop defence 4. Kael (starter) - big nuke from A2
You main focus as a new player has to be "Kael to 60", then get to 12-3 brutal to farm food and dump 800 gems into him to get his masteries. Drop vamp. and speed set on him. Crit cap and speed up to 200. And ONLY then you'll have a proper ability to farm food for other champs.
Don't sleep on Fayne. She's still in my CB team 6 months in. Her kit covers many things alowing you to opt out some champs. She's a "jack of all trades". The only downside I see with her so far is her low base defence. It's hard to keep her alive.
Good luck with your challenge! I think, the best part of it is posting daily, no matter how short or small the video is, thus giving your subs something to look forward to. Good job!