Every level costs gold and Hero EXP, and twelve of them also cost Hero's Essence. Your hero's ascension tier sets how high it can go, up to 240 at Ascended. The Resonating Crystal then copies the level of your fifth-best hero onto everyone else you slot into it, so you only ever pay to level five heroes.
Level caps by ascension tier
| Ascension tier | Level cap |
|---|---|
| Common, Rare, Rare+, Elite | 100 |
| Elite+ | 120 |
| Legendary | 140 |
| Legendary+ | 160 |
| Mythic | 180 |
| Mythic+ | 200 |
| Ascended (any number of stars) | 240 |
The stars on an Ascended hero don't raise the cap. Past 240, levels only come from the Resonating Crystal (see the last section).
A hero's rarity decides how far it can climb. Common heroes never leave Common, so they stop at 100. Rare heroes top out at Legendary+ and level 160. Every hero that starts at Elite or Legendary can reach Ascended.
Hero's Essence breakpoints
Gold and Hero EXP are paid on every level. Hero's Essence is paid only when you push past one of these twelve levels:
| Level | Hero's Essence to reach the next level | Skill upgrade unlocked at |
|---|---|---|
| 10 | 10 | 11 |
| 20 | 40 | 21 |
| 40 | 100 | 41 |
| 60 | 250 | 61 |
| 80 | 500 | 81 |
| 100 | 1,200 | 101 |
| 120 | 3,000 | 121 |
| 140 | 6,000 | 141 |
| 160 | 12,000 | 161 |
| 180 | 25,000 | 181 |
| 200 | 30,000 | 201 |
| 220 | 40,000 | 221 |
All 191 Elite heroes unlock their skill upgrades on the level right after a breakpoint (11, 21, 41 and so on). Crossing a breakpoint is the most valuable single level a hero can gain, because that one level brings a skill rank, while the levels in between only add stats. A hero parked at 160 is one Essence payment away from its next skill; a hero at 150 is ten levels of gold and EXP plus that payment away.
The breakpoints from 100 to 200 also line up with the tier caps. A Legendary+ hero stops at 160 and can't pay the 12,000 Essence until it reaches Mythic, so it's worth ascending before you bank Essence for that level.
Total cost to each cap
| Levels | Gold | Hero EXP | Hero's Essence |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 to 100 | 1,953,229 | 1,088,586 | 900 |
| 100 to 120 | 1,695,139 | 1,539,000 | 1,200 |
| 120 to 140 | 4,182,785 | 5,090,000 | 3,000 |
| 140 to 160 | 6,672,443 | 10,571,000 | 6,000 |
| 160 to 180 | 8,118,656 | 16,470,000 | 12,000 |
| 180 to 200 | 9,208,493 | 23,470,000 | 25,000 |
| 200 to 240 | 21,802,587 | 76,456,000 | 70,000 |
| 1 to 240 | 53,633,332 | 134,684,586 | 118,100 |
Hero EXP is the cost that runs away. Getting one hero from 200 to 240 takes 76.5 million EXP, more than the 58.2 million it took to get from 1 to 200. Gold is the easier side of the curve: 200 to 240 costs less gold than 1 to 200 did.
AFK Rewards pay Hero EXP, gold and Hero's Essence and stop filling after 12 hours, so collect at least twice a day. Fast Rewards give two hours of the same on the spot: the first of the day is free, a second costs 50 diamonds, and from VIP 3 a third costs 80.
The Resonating Crystal
The crystal opens after you clear stage 4-36 (at 2-12 on accounts that started on one of the newer story openings). Your five highest-level heroes sit on the pentagram automatically, and any hero you put in one of the crystal's slots is raised to the level of the lowest of those five. Slotted heroes are capped by the highest tier they could ever reach, not their current tier, so an Elite hero you just pulled jumps straight to your crystal level without being ascended. A Rare hero in a slot still stops at 160 and a Common hero at 100.
A hero in the crystal can't be leveled by hand. If you take a hero out, it drops back to the level it had before, and the slot goes on a 24-hour cooldown. You can clear the cooldown with diamonds; the price is 100 diamonds scaled down by the time already waited. Heroes that leave because they were ascended, retired or promoted onto the pentagram don't trigger the cooldown.
You start with two slots. More are bought with Invigorating Essence, which AFK Rewards start dropping once you reach chapter 5, or with diamonds:
| Slot purchase | Invigorating Essence | Diamonds |
|---|---|---|
| 1st | 200 | 800 |
| 2nd | 250 | 800 |
| 3rd | 300 | 1,200 |
| 4th | 300 | 1,200 |
| 5th | 300 | 1,200 |
| 6th | 400 | 1,200 |
| 7th | 400 | 1,600 |
| 8th | 500 | 1,600 |
| 9th | 600 | 1,600 |
| 10th | 600 | 1,600 |
Essence prices keep rising to 5,000 per slot from the 28th purchase on, and diamond slots reach 6,400 each from the 21st. The two currencies have separate counters, so buying with one doesn't make the other more expensive.
The practical rule that falls out of this: put all your Hero EXP, gold and Essence into the five heroes you want on the pentagram and nobody else. Every other hero you care about goes in a slot and gets their levels for free. If you change your mind about the five, the Rickety Cart resets a hero and returns everything spent on its levels and gear. Resets are free until you clear stage 4-36 and cost 20 diamonds per hero after that.
Going past level 240
When all five pentagram heroes hit 240, the crystal itself becomes levelable. From then on every hero on the pentagram or in a slot follows the crystal's level instead of the fifth hero's, and unlocking it adds five more slots. Only heroes that can reach Ascended go above 240; everyone else stays at their own cap.
The crystal's cap starts at 240 and rises by 5 for each different Ascended hero you own. Each crystal level is paid in ten steps: the gold and Hero EXP are split evenly across the steps and the Hero's Essence is due on the tenth.
| Crystal level | Gold | Hero EXP | Hero's Essence |
|---|---|---|---|
| 240 to 241 | 3,047,420 | 12,900,000 | 3,174 |
| 250 to 251 | 5,101,370 | 23,800,000 | 5,568 |
| 260 to 261 | 7,610,190 | 39,750,000 | 8,607 |
| 270 to 271 | 10,786,340 | 62,100,000 | 12,437 |
| 280 to 281 | 14,580,550 | 90,650,000 | 17,123 |
| 300 to 301 | 15,457,720 | 105,300,000 | 19,057 |
| 350 to 351 | 18,132,620 | 130,100,000 | 24,703 |
| 400 to 401 | 27,936,660 | 211,150,000 | 37,507 |
| 500 to 501 | 35,389,440 | 301,900,000 | 44,544 |
| From 240 to | Gold | Hero EXP | Hero's Essence |
|---|---|---|---|
| 250 | 38,963,320 | 174,400,000 | 42,309 |
| 260 | 100,850,910 | 479,550,000 | 111,043 |
| 280 | 314,717,630 | 1,715,750,000 | 358,396 |
| 300 | 613,776,900 | 3,678,700,000 | 718,955 |
| 350 | 1,450,192,430 | 9,529,800,000 | 1,804,908 |
| 400 | 2,677,804,170 | 18,581,100,000 | 3,481,305 |
The first crystal level costs about five times the gold and EXP of taking one hero from 239 to 240 (606,953 gold and 2,542,000 EXP), which is fair given that it raises five heroes plus every slot at once. The steep part comes early: the gold for one crystal level goes from about 3.0 million at 240 to 14.6 million at 280, then only to 18.1 million by 350.
Because the cap grows with your Ascended collection, the crystal is never the only thing to spend on late in the game. Ascending a new hero all the way is what lets the crystal go five levels higher.