In Dynasty Origins: Conquest, you will set up to 8 heroes on a 16-tile board. Each hero has different roles for you to mix and match in quests and PVP. The mage is also very important for your formation to perform well. Let us take a look at how the various mages in the game fit in different modes.

Mage: Mr. Shuijing

As your starting mage, Mr. Shuijing is suitable for progressing through quests with Shu heroes or other early-game heroes. He is an offensive mage that increases allies' ATK and inflicts debuffs like Stun, DEF reduction and Burn on the enemy, increasing your team's damage output.

Formation Recommendation:

Replacement Heroes:

1. Mr. Shuijing's ultimate skill, Phoenix Fire, deals damage to enemies in a large area and inflicts Burn. It combines with his skill 3, Rolling Wind, to spread Burn over an even larger area. This allows you to replace Zhang Xingcai and Huang Wudie in the back row with Gan Ning and Sun Shangxiang, making use of Slowing Shot, while replacing Zhao Yun with Sun Jian can allow you to deal even more damage.

2. Meng Huo and Huang Gai can be replaced with Dian Wei and Cao Ren to trigger Shield, increasing defensive ability. If you have Zhou Tai, you can also keep Huang Gai for his defensive and healing ability.

3. Ma Yunlu can be replaced with Ma Chao to increase breakthrough ability.

Formation Suitability:

Mage: Zhou Yu

Zhou Yu's key abilities are Slowing Shot, Captain of Archers and Burning Shot. His ultimate skill Flaming Feather is also a powerful buff for archers (especially for Wu), and is a great mage for the early game.

Formation Recommendation:

Replacement Heroes:

1. Replace Dian Wei with Zhou Tai in the front row. The more Wu heroes are deployed, the more healing Zhou Tai receives. If all heroes are Wu, Zhou Tai can heal very quickly when his HP is low.

2. Huang Gai can be replaced with Cao Ren in the front row, triggering Shield with Dian Wei. Replace Sun Shangxiang with Da Qiao in the back row to increase overall survivability.

Formation Suitability:

Mage: Zhang Bao

The key mage for the Yellow Turbans, Zhang Bao has good crowd control and stun ability. He can summon Yellow Turbans to distract the enemy in battle.

Formation Recommendation:

Replacement Heroes:

1. Zhang Bao fits best with a Yellow Turban lineup. You can replace Zhao Yun with Liao Hua and Huang Zhong with Zhurong, though this is only suitable for the early game.

2> Meng Huo can be replaced with Dian Wei or Huang Gai, while Zhang Xingcai or Huang Wudie can be replaced with Gan Ning in the back row, increasing damage.

3. Zhao Yun can be replaced with Cao Chong. In addition to control abilities, Cao Chong also triggers Wild Beast with Meng Huo, attacking together with Yellow Turban summons.

Formation Suitability:

Mage: Xun Yu

Xun Yu is a support mage that focuses on healing.

Formation Recommendation:

Replacement Heroes:

1. Lineups with Xun Yu tend to have high survivability, making them useful for Arena defense. For a low-end lineup, replace Zhou Tai with Yue Jin and Cao Ren with Yuan Shu, though this reduces defensive ability.

2. Xu Chu and Da Qiao can be replaced with Zhang He and Yu Jin, and Zhou Tai with Yue Jin. This way, the front row can still trigger Shield, while Yue Jin, Zhang He and Yu Jin's Great Strategists combo increases damage output.

3. Liu Bei can be replaced with Xu Huang and Xu Chu with Zhang Liao to increase breakthrough ability.

Formation Suitability:

Mage Diao Chan

Diao Chan is one of the few female mages available. She copies the hero with highest STR and causes it to attack the enemy hero 10 times. If the copied hero has high STR (like a fully ascended Lu Bu), it can wipe out the enemy back row in an instant.

Formation Recommendation:

Replacement Heroes:

1. Replace Yuan Shao with Taishi Ci or Gan Ning to provide fire support for Brutality Heavy Cavalry in front.

2. Replace Zhou Tai with Dian Wei, triggering Shield with Cao Ren to increase front row survivability. They will absorb some damage for the Heavy Cavalry while buying time for damage dealers.

Formation Suitability:

We hope you enjoyed the introduction to heroes and their recommended formations.

Struggling with Drill Ground? Here are a few tips that will help you get through.

A. What is Drill Ground?

Drill Ground is located at the far left side of the main menu. The five stages (Rookie, Training, Schools, Battlefield, and Strategy) are unlocked in order as you level up. These are more difficult than the beginner stages, but here are some tips for the first 3 stages:

B. How do you clear the stages?

1. Rookie

There are 5 chapters in the Rookie stage: Quick Attack, Melee, Range, Precision and Military Array. A different hero will guide you in each chapter to understand the basics of combat and troop traits.

The Quick Attack and Melee chapters, introducing Light Cavalry and Infantry, are low in difficulty. If you're stuck in the Range chapter, remember to put Zhao Yun in the same lane as the enemy infantry.

The Precision chapter trains your ability to cast spells at the right time, and interrupt the enemy while they're charging to cast their skills. The key is to cast your skills when Zhurong is charging up. In the Military Array chapter, focus on eliminating troops first.

2. Training

There are 8 chapters in Training: Morale, Suppressing, Timing, Survival, Hero Selection, Raiders, Division and Unity, and Recon. Once you complete these 8 chapters, you should have a fairly good grasp of how combat works. The first 3 chapters are relatively easy and you should have little difficulty completing them.

Chapter 4, Survival, requires proper timing and the use of spells to improve your troops' survivability. You will need to act quicker, give your hero a Water Shield while the enemy Zhurong is charging up, and heal when Yue Jin's HP is low.

Chapter 5, Hero Selection, is very important. Use generals that have synergy with each other to maximize the effectiveness of their skills. The key here is to put Zhang Liang and archers as far away from the enemy as possible.

The key to chapter 6 is to use Zhang Bao's Yellow Turban Guard to delay Yuan Shao. In chapter 7, cast skills while the enemy is bunched up to wipe them out in one go. Set the proper battle order to complete chapter 8.

3. Schools

At this point you have reached the advanced stages. There are 7 chapters here: Combination, Wild Beasts, Formation, Summon, Archers, Shu, and Pierce. Let's look at some of the more difficult chapters.

Wild Beasts: Put one of the light cavalry who can summon beasts at the top and the other at the bottom, as far away from the enemy as possible. The Formation and Summon chapters are easy.

Archers: Put Yuan Shu in front and Huang Gai in the back. Wait until you have the Spell Points to cast two skills in succession. Timing is key here!

Shu: Match Huang Yueying and Liu Bei with Wutugu, and Huang Wudie with Meng Huo. (In the last chapter, all you need to do is to push your pierce light cavalry forward) Here's the formation:

We hope you found these tips on Drill Ground useful!