Troop Grade and Renascence

Before we talk about "rens" there are a few simple things we need to cover first.

Troop Grade:

Every 1.6 levels your hero gains 1 troop grade. The only other way to increase your troop grade is Renascence (discussed later). A comparison of troop grade is used to determine the probability of special abilities (crit/dodge/block/counterattack) as well as increasing/decreasing overall damage. It also effects the success rate of spells, which includes offensive spells as well as healing and dancing.

A few lesser known facts about troop grade (T.G.):

• T.G. does NOT affect faculty (hitpoints) of your hero. Faculty is determined by the hiring cost and level of the hero only (more expensive heroes have more hitpoints).
  
• For area attacks, only the "defending unit's" troop grade is used. The secondary targets from area attacks do use their level, as well as stats, gear, and tech to reduce incoming damage, but their troop grade is irrelavent.
  
• Dancers/Healers still have a "defending unit." In this case it is still the unit they would have attacked if they were an offensive mage, and a comparison of T.G. creates a % chance of success for both dancing and healing.

Renascence:

Renascence or ren/rens/renning/rena is an "opportunity" to relevel your hero achieving a higher troop grade the 2nd (or 3rd or 4th or 5th... etc) time around. Rens are first available under the "Evolution" tab when your hero becomes level 51.

• Under normal circumstances, when you ren a hero, you will see him gain somewhere between 5 to 8 Troop Grade. It is easy to see how much troop grade your hero gained because the "next ren level" will increase by that same amount. The only exception to gaining 5-8 troop grade is that your "next ren level" cannot be more than your assembly + 1.
  
• A common "noob mistake" is to ren a hero when your assembly is only 51 (and the hero of course). This hero is garunteed to gain 1 troop grade only... and their next ren will be level 52. Don't make this mistake! Your assembly needs to be at least 7 levels above your "ren req level" for that hero.
  
• Any hero levels beyond the "ren req level" do not help the ren in any way and are wasted.



Don't ren every hero you own... it's just a waste of trans (transcendence used to fast track... see garden guides for info) and time. The length of time you want to use a hero should determine how much you renascence them, in addition to what role they play.
A fighting hero which has not been renned will become less useful than it's renned counterparts. In general when a hero gets to about 25-30 levels beyond its ren req, and you are fighting equal level NPC's, the hero becomes mostly useless. There are some notable exeptions you can get away with not renning.

Which Heroes Should I Ren?

• Offensive Heroes (BM/mech/mage): Ren based entirely on how long you plan to use the hero. You can get to faction maps skipping rens on some of your offensive heroes... but any offensive hero you plan on using at level 100 should definitely be max renned.
  
  
  Example 1: I'm playing a Belle Bomb as Athena and I plan on replacing Belle with Sponde. I will not ren Belle at all because Sponde is available at a relatively low M13.
  Example 2: I'm playing Poseidon and plan on using belle until I can get Daphne (Lotis is a stronger choice but this is just an example). Since Daphne isn't available until M25 I will definitely ren Belle a few times.
  Example 3: I'm playing a Belle Bomb as Zeus and plan on getting Maia (duh). I won't ren Belle at all because Maia is available at M15.
  
  
• Dancer: Athena/Zeus should probably ren artemis a few times, in order to get to Persephone. Poseidon shouldn't ren Artemis at all as they can grab Amphitrite. Both Amphitrite and Persephone should be renned to the max.
  
  
• Healer: If you want to use Asclepius "all the time" for pvp and map you need to ren him to the max. If you want to just use him for legions/gardens you can get away without renning him. Troop grade effects his heal a little bit (becomes negligible with a nice book), but more importantly it effects his success rate. See To Heal or Not to Heal
  
  
• Bugler: Since Buglers have 100% success, renning them is purely defensive. Any bugle that will be on the front line (usually Eris because of high valor score), needs to be max renned. You can get away with not renning a back bugler if replacing it with Cronus later. A front bugle even if you are going to replace, needs to be max renned in order to reach Cronus.

Level 85: The most important level in the game.

Level 85 you gain a second training ground. Once you level up this training ground you will be getting twice as much experience per hour (and from a transcendence). This is HUGE for being able to accomplish rens in a timely manner. In order to reach level 85 you will need to finish Burning Sky and move to the level 100 area. It is quite easy to do this without renning any heroes... though you might as well ren any bugles you plan on keeping. Pushing to finish Burning Sky and pushing to 85 is a GREAT way to get ahead of your competition. They can farm prestige at level 60 or 80, while you focus on getting stronger and invest 3x10 daily. When you first reach the level 100 area you may get kicked around a bit... but then you will be poised to beat up on every new person that moves in after you.

Another note about level 85: It is the maximum level for getting a full reward (16k drach) from Pandora's Box. For Hades Legion (HL2) you can go up to 87 and still get double laurels.