Castle Clash Leveling Guide

Read This First

Castle Clash has no account level. There is no "level 60" to race to — your heroes ARE your levels. Everything in this guide is about getting individual heroes from level 1 to level 200, then through evolution, Destiny and equipment. If you come from an MMO expecting one character level that unlocks everything, reset that expectation now: a new hero starts at level 1 no matter how strong your account is, and the scarcest resource in the whole game is not XP — it is Honor Badges, the currency that opens every star gate. Leveling in Castle Clash is two budgets at once: XP to reach the gate, and badges to open it.

Castle Clash has been running since 2013, and thirteen years of systems have piled up on top of the original hero loop: star upgrades, evolution, Destiny, equipment, talents, crests, inscriptions, pets, artifacts. A new player meeting all of that at once can easily spend their scarcest currencies on the wrong layer. This guide orders the work the way a veteran would: the star-gate economy first, because it gates everything; the XP routes second, because they are cheap and repeatable; the shortcuts third; and the post-200 layers last, because they only matter once a hero is already maxed. The newest hero as of this writing is Bone Baroness, added October 10, 2026, and the game is still adding a new hero roughly every couple of months — so the specific "best hero" answer changes, but the leveling math in this guide does not.

One honest note up front: no verified XP-per-level table exists for Castle Clash. The wiki documents the star-gate costs precisely, down to the last Honor Badge, but the XP required to go from level 1 to 20, or 180 to 200, is not published in any source we could verify. This guide therefore gives you exact numbers where they exist — star costs, book values, badge totals — and relative advice where they do not. Where a number comes from a single fan guide rather than the wiki, it is labeled as such.

How Hero Leveling Works

A hero gains levels from experience earned in battle: dungeons, raids, Here Be Monsters, the Lost Realm, Hero Expeditions, guild wars, boss fights. Every hero starts at 1 star with a maximum level of 20. When the hero reaches level 20, a Star Upgrade can be bought at the Heroes Altar, raising the maximum level by another 20 — and the star purchase also raises the hero's stats by its level-1 stats, so the gate itself is a power spike, not just a permission slip. A hero can have 10 stars and, per the wiki, presumably reach level 200. The star level also affects skill level points: higher stars allow higher skill levels, so a hero stuck at a low star is capped in two ways at once.

Heroes come in four rarities — Ordinary, Elite, Legendary and Epic — and the rarity shapes the ceiling. Ordinary heroes like the Angel, Marauder and Frost Witch are early-game fillers; Elite heroes like the Assassin, Werewolf and Pain-Da are solid mid-game options; Legendary heroes — Paladin, Druid, Thunder God, Pumpkin Duke, Minotaur Chieftain, Cupid and dozens more — are the long-term roster; Epic heroes are the newest tier. The leveling system itself is identical for all of them: same XP rules, same star gates, same badge costs. Rarity decides how far the investment is worth taking, not how the leveling works.

The single most important mechanic to internalize is the XP split. Experience earned in battle is split equally among the heroes you deploy. Six heroes on a dungeon share the XP six ways; one hero alone takes it all. That is why the first tip in every beginner guide is the same: deploy one hero at a time on an easy dungeon you can clear without casualties, and that hero levels far faster than a full team sharing the same kills. It feels wrong — surely a full team clears faster — but the XP is divided, not multiplied, so the solo hero wins on XP per run every time. The rest of this guide is built on that one fact.

The two-budget rule: every hero you level costs XP and Honor Badges. XP is the budget you control directly — you can always run one more dungeon. Honor Badges are the budget the game controls — they arrive mainly from arena ranking, in amounts set by your rank. A hero with full XP and no badges is stuck at the gate, and no amount of grinding fixes that. Plan your roster around the badge budget, not the XP budget.

The Star Gates: The Full Cost Table

This is the table the whole guide revolves around. Every star upgrade costs three things — gold, Honor Badges and dungeon flames — and the price climbs steeply. The figures are from the Castle Clash wiki's Stars page, which is the authoritative source for this system.

Star	Gold	Honor Badges	Flames	Max level
1	Free	Free	—	20
2	10,000	1,000	10	40
3	30,000	3,000	50	60
4	100,000	10,000	75	80
5	200,000	20,000	105	100
6	300,000	30,000	135	120
7	500,000	50,000	190	140
8	1,000,000	100,000	250	160
9	2,000,000	200,000	320	180
10	5,000,000	400,000	550	200

Source: Castle Clash Wiki, Stars page. Flames are the dungeon flames earned from dungeon runs.

Read the shape of that table, not just the numbers. The first five stars are cheap: 34,000 Honor Badges in total gets a hero to level 100. The last five stars cost twenty-three times that. The jump from 8 to 9 stars alone costs 200,000 badges — more than the entire journey to level 100, twice over. That shape is the whole strategy of Castle Clash leveling: getting six heroes to level 100 is dramatically cheaper than getting one hero to level 200, and a broad roster of mid-star heroes will carry you through far more content than a single maxed hero while your badge income is still low.

The cumulative badge bill

Level cap	Non-evolved hero (total HB)	Evo1 hero (total HB)	Evo2 hero (total HB)
100	34,000	20,000	— (starts at 5 stars)
120	64,000	50,000	30,000
140	114,000	100,000	80,000
160	214,000	200,000	180,000
180	414,000	400,000	380,000
200	814,000	800,000	780,000

Source: Castle Clash Wiki, Stars page (Honor Badge Requirement table). Evolved heroes start at 4 stars (Evo1) or 5 stars (Evo2), so the early gates are already passed — that is where their small discount comes from.

Two practical consequences. First, the 20,000 badges needed to pass level 80 is the first wall most players hit. Everything before it is a rounding error; everything after it is a project. Second, the gold cost matters too: the 10-star upgrade costs 5,000,000 gold, and your gold vaults have a capacity limit. If your vaults combined cannot hold the gold for an upgrade, the wiki notes the shortfall can be paid in gems instead — its example is a 9-to-10-star upgrade with 100,000 gold short, costing 75 gems. That only works if you already have the Honor Badges and flames; gems cannot buy you past a badge shortage.

Where the XP Comes From

Battle XP is the base income, and the mode you pick decides how fast it arrives. The fan guides agree on the ranking, and it has barely changed in years — because the XP split mechanic has not changed.

The solo-dungeon run

The fastest battle XP comes from deploying one hero at a time on an easy dungeon you can clear without casualties. Pick a dungeon you can finish cleanly and repeat it. The EpicNPC beginner guide's first tip is exactly this, and every other guide repeats it: a full team splits every battle's XP six ways, while a solo hero keeps it all. The dungeon also pays Hero Shards and Honor Badges, and clearing enough dungeons earns the stars that let your heroes pass their level gates — dungeon progress and hero levels are tied together, so a hero stuck at level 20 is usually also a player who has not cleared enough dungeons. Do not chase hard dungeons for XP when an easy dungeon cleared without casualties pays more per hour: deaths and slow clears cost more XP than the harder dungeon's bonus is worth.

Here Be Monsters

Here Be Monsters is the mode the fan guides single out for hero experience and shards. Waves of monsters, escalating difficulty, and a steady XP drip per wave — it is the closest thing Castle Clash has to a grind spot, and it is where a solo hero with good sustain earns its keep. It also feeds the Rise Fund questline, which pays gems for clearing it, so the XP and the gem income stack on the same runs.

Raids: the gold run that also levels

Raiding other players' bases is primarily a gold and mana run — our farming guide covers it in full — but it also pays hero XP, and it pays it on your schedule, as often as you want to attack. A raid that destroys the Town Hall or reaches 50% destruction is a guaranteed win, per the WriterParty beginner guide, so a raid you can win cleanly is XP with no downside. The raiding advice that matters for leveling is the same as for gold: skip bases loaded with troops and hit ones whose defences you can clear cheaply, since troop losses eat the profit — and a dead hero earns nothing.

Lost Realm

The Lost Realm pays experience badges you can spend to level a specific hero directly, per the leveling coverage. It is the targeted XP mode: when one hero is five levels short of a star gate and the rest of your roster is fine, the Lost Realm is how you close that gap without splitting XP across a team. Gems can buy Lost Realm entries, so there is a real-money shortcut here — but the entries are one of the worse gem spends in the game, and this guide recommends earning them instead.

Hero Expeditions

Hero Expeditions, reached through the Arena, run 10 levels a day against increasingly mighty opponents, with rewards that scale with your might. They pay merits and Honor Badges alongside XP, which makes them the only XP mode that also attacks the badge wall. The might-scaled rewards are covered in their own section below, but the leveling point is simple: run your 10 levels every day. They are the most badge-efficient XP in the game precisely because they pay both budgets at once.

Guild content

Guild wars, torch battles and boss fights pay XP too, and the fan leveling guides list them as a meaningful supplement — but they are scheduled, social content, not a grind you control. Join an active guild, show up for the scheduled fights, and treat the XP as a bonus on top of your solo-dungeon routine, not as the routine itself.

XP source	What it pays	When to use it
Solo easy dungeon	Full battle XP to one hero + shards + HB	Your main grind, every day
Here Be Monsters	Steady XP + shards	When you want waves, not one-off runs
Raids	XP + gold + mana	Whenever you need gold anyway
Lost Realm	XP badges for a chosen hero	To close a gap to a star gate
Hero Expeditions	XP + merits + Honor Badges	Daily, all 10 levels
Guild wars / bosses	XP as a bonus	Scheduled; show up, collect

Books and Essence: Leveling Without Fighting

The Tactics Academy, inside the Heroes Altar under the Earn Exp tab, lets you level a hero without fighting at all. It has three tabs, and they are three different economies.

Experience books

Per the wiki, experience books come in three sizes — green for 1,000 XP, blue for 5,000 XP and purple for 20,000 XP — and are earned from succeeding at Quest Board quests. The books are the precision tool: a purple book is 20,000 XP exactly where you want it, on exactly the hero you want. Save purple books for heroes near a star gate, where a single book can close the gap — spending a purple book on a level 3 hero is the same XP, but the gate-closing use is worth more because it unlocks 20 more levels of battle XP. Blue books are the workhorse for mid-level heroes; green books are best spent early, when 1,000 XP is a real chunk of a level.

The Quest Board is therefore an XP source in disguise: every quest you complete is not just its stated reward, it is the book it unlocks. Check the board daily, complete the quests you can, and claim the books. The stub-era mistake — leaving Quest Board books unclaimed while heroes sit below a star gate — is still the most common leveling error in the game, because the books sit in a different menu from the hero they belong to.

Essence

The Academy's second tab, Consume Essence, spends essence traded for merits in the Warehouse on hero experience. Merits come from Hero Expeditions and guild content, so essence is the conversion of your daily expedition runs into direct hero XP. It is a smaller, steadier stream than books — but it is also the most reliable one, because merits arrive every day whether or not the Quest Board cooperates.

Skill experience: Consume Heroes

The third tab, Consume Heroes, sacrifices heroes or slimes for skill experience — and this is where duplicates stop being waste. Consuming the same hero gives double skill XP, per the EpicNPC guide, so duplicate pulls are skill food, not clutter. Do not feed duplicate heroes away as ordinary sacrifices: a duplicate of the hero whose skill you are raising is worth twice a random sacrifice. This is the one place where pulling a hero you already own is good news.

Books are not a replacement for battling — they are the finisher. A hero leveled entirely on books would need an enormous Quest Board output, and the books are too scarce for that. The efficient pattern is: battle XP does the bulk of the work, books close the last few levels before a star gate, and essence tops up the heroes you are not actively running. A purple book spent to cross a gate is worth more than the same book spent mid-level, because the gate unlocks the next 20 levels of battle XP.

Skill XP: The Second Level Bar

Every hero has two levels, and new players only watch one of them. The hero's level decides its stats; the hero's skill level decides what its skill actually does — damage multipliers, targets hit, duration, healing. A level 200 hero with a level 1 skill is a strong body with a weak punch, and the wiki's star table makes the link explicit: the star level affects the skill level points a hero can hold. Leveling the hero without leveling the skill leaves most of the power on the table.

Skill XP comes from the Tactics Academy's Consume Heroes tab: sacrifice heroes or slimes, and the skill gains experience. The details that matter:

Same-hero sacrifices pay double. Consuming a duplicate of the hero whose skill you are raising gives double skill XP. Duplicates are therefore the most valuable skill food in the game — keep them, do not burn them as generic sacrifices.
Slimes are the filler. Slimes exist to be consumed for skill XP. They are the steady, farmable input; duplicates are the bonus.
Skill level caps follow star level. A hero stuck at a low star cannot raise its skill past the cap for that star, so a skill that seems "maxed" is usually just star-gated. Open the gate first, then raise the skill.
Prioritize the active skill. A hero's active skill is what it does in battle; it is the skill whose level changes outcomes. Level the active skill first, and treat passive or secondary skill levels as the later project.

Skill XP is also why the "one hero at a time" rule has a second edge. A hero you level solo gets all the battle XP — but its skill only grows when you feed it sacrifices. Keep a small stock of slimes and duplicates for your main six heroes, and feed skills in the same order you level heroes: the hero you are pushing to the next star gate is the hero whose skill gets fed first.

Talents, Crests and Inscription

A hero's level and skill are the base. Talents, crests and inscription are the multipliers on top of it — and they are where gems and long-term planning enter the picture.

Talents

Every hero is granted a random talent next to its standard skill when obtained. Talents are rolled with gems, and re-rolling a talent is one of the main gem sinks in the game. The talent level adds directly to a hero's might (the wiki's might formula includes talent level times 20), and high-level talents are a large share of a maxed hero's power. Two rules govern talent spending:

Do not roll talents on heroes you have not committed to. A talent roll is only worth it on a hero you plan to take to 200 and evolve. Rolling on a filler hero is gems spent on a hero you will bench.
Save Talent Refresh Cards for the Quest Board trick. When a Quest Board quest asks you to change a talent, use a Talent Refresh Card instead of paying 300 gems — then collect the 300-gem quest reward. The cards drop from team dungeons (Mesa and Lava Isle) and sell in the Trade Merits shop. Our farming guide covers the trick in full; the leveling relevance is that it converts a farmed card into the gems that fund your talent rolls.

Crests

Crests are the socketed stat system: heroes equip crest sets that add HP, damage and other stats on top of their base numbers. The wiki's stat formulas include crest HP and damage boosts as separate terms, and the hero comparison tables are computed with and without them. Crests are leveled and set-matched like gear in other games — a matched set on your main six matters more than scattered high-level crests across your whole altar. The Heroes Altar now holds up to 233 heroes (raised in the August 2026 update), so the temptation to spread crests across a huge roster is real; resist it and concentrate them on the six you actually deploy.

Inscription

Inscription is the third multiplier layer: heroes carry inscription levels that add stats, and the wiki's hero comparison tables show damage both with and without level 80 inscriptions — the inscribed column is dramatically higher, which is the point. Inscription is a late-game system that only pays once the hero underneath it is already leveled and starred. Treat it as the polish on a finished hero, not as a shortcut for an unfinished one: inscribing a level 60 hero is spending a late-game resource on an early-game body.

Level first, multipliers second. Talents, crests and inscription all multiply the hero's base stats — and the base stats come from level and stars. A level 200 hero with mediocre talents outperforms a level 120 hero with great ones, because the multiplier has more to multiply. If you are choosing between spending gems on talent rolls and spending time on the solo-dungeon grind, the grind wins until your main six are at their star caps.

Destiny and Equipment: The Post-200 Layers

Once a hero is near or past level 200, two more progression layers open. Neither replaces leveling; both assume it.

Destiny

Destiny is a 40-level progression on a hero, unlocked with Karmic Rocks bought in the Warehouse with Fame — Karmic Rock I for 300 Fame, Rock II for 700, Rock III for 1,500 — plus hero copies at levels 20 (1 copy) and 40 (2 copies). A copy can be replaced with 5 Oath Tablets at 300 Fame each. The total bonuses at Destiny 40, per the wiki, are HP +32,600, Attack +1,380, ACC +360, Dodge +360, CRIT +80, CRIT Resist +80 and Skill Level +2. That Skill Level +2 is the headline: Destiny is one of the few ways to push a skill past its normal cap. Destiny levels are bought with Fame, which comes from Lost Battlefield play — so the arena routine that pays your gems also funds your Destiny.

Equipment

Equipment, accessed through the Armory, is the upgrade path for evolved heroes. It is leveled with Aetherocks, which come from three sources per the wiki: 1 Aetherock for every 200 EXP gained from any form of battle (dungeons, raids, Here Be Monsters), up to 75,000 per day; 15,000 Aetherocks free every day, added automatically; and converting experience tomes at the Armory, at 1 Aetherock per 5 tome XP. Augmentation — the deeper equipment layer — needs 2 hero duplicates and unlocks an equipment enchantment (which acts like a talent specific to the equipment, in 5 levels and various types) plus a collection of traits (also 5 levels, various types, each raising a stat). The practical point for leveling: battle XP earns Aetherocks at the same time, so your solo-dungeon grind is already funding your equipment. Do not convert tomes into Aetherocks early — the tomes are hero XP, and hero XP is worth more than the conversion rate until your roster is maxed.

Evolution: What Happens After Level 200

Level 200 is the star-table cap, but it is not the end of a hero. Legendary heroes at 10 stars, between levels 180 and 200, can evolve — and evolution is the game's real endgame for a hero.

Evolution comes in two generations. The first evolution costs 1 evolution rune, 1,000 red crystals and 1 duplicate copy of the hero (or 20,000 green crystals in place of the copy). The second costs 5 runes, 2,000 crystals and 3 duplicates. The costs are steep by design: duplicates of a legendary hero are the rarest input in the game, which is why duplicates should never be fed away casually — a duplicate you burn for double skill XP today is a duplicate you cannot spend on evolution tomorrow. Keep at least the evolution copies for your main six.

What evolution changes: an evolved hero's stars start at 4 (Evo1) or 5 (Evo2) instead of 1, and its stars do not increase until the hero reaches the level that matches that star — so the star gates still apply, just from a higher floor. Evolved heroes use their own base stat formulas (the wiki's Game Mechanics page gives separate Evo1 formulas), and their cumulative Honor Badge bill to level 200 is slightly lower: 800,000 at Evo1 and 780,000 at Evo2, against 814,000 for a non-evolved hero. Evolution also unlocks equipment in the Armory, which is the next layer up. One fan guide reports that the XP invested in the 10-star hero is refunded on evolution as purple experience books — 263 books at 500,000 XP each, by that guide's count — which would make evolution nearly XP-neutral; that figure comes from a single fan guide and is not corroborated by the wiki, so treat it as a report, not a promise, and check the refund in game before evolving a hero you still need books for.

The Classic Server only gained the Hero Evolution system in the October 10, 2026 update, unlocking at level 180 — a reminder that the two servers do not always move together. If you play Classic, confirm the system is live for your hero before planning around it.

Evolution is a commitment, not a milestone. The duplicate cost means you evolve a hero you are certain about — one that anchors your dungeon, raid and arena teams. Evolving a hero you later bench strands runes, crystals and duplicates in a hero you no longer use. Level six heroes to 200 first, then evolve the one or two that carry the most modes.

Might and Hero Expeditions

Might is Castle Clash's account power score, and it gates more than bragging rights. It is computed from hero levels, skill levels, talent levels and movement speed — the wiki's formula weights legendary heroes highest (level times 5, skill level times 58.5, talent level times 20) — and it decides what you can access and what you earn.

The most important might gate is the Lost Battlefield, which unlocks at 10,000 might. Below that, you cannot play the mode that pays the steadiest free gems in the game. Getting your first heroes to level 100 and their skills up is therefore not just about power — it is about unlocking the gem income that funds everything else. Might also sets your Hero Expedition rewards: the wiki's might-rank table runs from Sir at 14,536 might (15 gems and 200 Honor Badges per expedition tier) up through Duke at 38,345, to Conqueror at 300,000 and Ascendant at 500,000 (100 gems and 18,000 Honor Badges). Higher might also lets you deploy more heroes at once in expeditions — 6 at the low ranks, up to 10 at the top — and grants bigger HP buffs to the attacking side.

That creates a virtuous loop that is the real engine of Castle Clash progression: level heroes, gain might, unlock better expedition and arena rewards, earn more Honor Badges and gems, spend them on more levels. And a vicious loop in the other direction: a player who spreads XP across twenty heroes gains might slowly, unlocks nothing, and stalls. Concentrate. Six heroes, leveled hard, beat twenty heroes leveled a little — on might, on badges, on gems, on every currency that matters.

Which Heroes to Level First

Castle Clash adds a new hero roughly every couple of months — Bone Baroness in October 2026, Wardrum Demon in August, Terrafica and Dorothy in June — so any fixed tier list in this guide would be stale within a quarter. What does not change is the shape of a good first roster. Level for coverage, not for fashion:

Your first six should cover the modes you play daily. A dungeon clearer, a raid attacker, an arena defender, a boss killer, a healer or sustain hero, and one flex pick. If all six are single-target damage dealers, your dungeon runs will stall on waves and your arena defence will fold.
Start with the classics that have survived every meta. The wiki's legendary list is full of heroes that have been strong for years — Druid for healing, Thunder God for area damage, Pumpkin Duke for crowd control, Minotaur Chieftain for tanking, Cupid for support. A hero that was good in 2020 and is still on the list in 2026 is a safer investment than the hero of the month. The old forum wisdom still holds: when players offered trades, a Pumpkin Duke was "worth more than all the others combined" — that is how durable the classic picks are.
Level one hero at a time to its next star gate, then move on. A roster of six heroes all at level 99 is worse than a roster where two are at 120 and four are at 80, because the two at 120 unlock content the others cannot. Finish a gate before starting the next hero's climb.
Do not level Ordinary heroes past the early game. Ordinary heroes like the Angel and Marauder are fine for your first week — they teach the systems and clear the first dungeons. But every badge you spend on an Ordinary hero's star gate is a badge you cannot spend on a Legendary's. Move on once you have your first legendaries.
Keep duplicates of your main six. Duplicates are double skill XP, evolution material, Destiny material and augmentation material. A duplicate of a hero you use is never waste; a duplicate of a hero you benched is.

One more consideration: new heroes arrive with launch events that often make them cheap to obtain and level — bonus rolls, event quests, Rise Fund-style rewards. When Bone Baroness arrived in October 2026, the event around her was the cheapest way to add a strong hero to a roster. If a new hero fits a gap in your six, the launch window is the time to grab them. If it does not fit a gap, let the event pass: a seventh hero you do not need is still a seventh hero splitting your XP.

The Daily & Weekly Leveling Loop

Castle Clash rewards routine more than marathons. The daily loop below is about an hour of focused play, and it is the loop that actually gets heroes to 200.

Every day

Quest Board first. Complete and claim every Quest Board quest — the experience books are the day's precision XP, and unclaimed books are the most common leveling mistake in the game.
Hero Expeditions: all 10 levels. The XP, merits and Honor Badges pay both budgets at once. Do them before anything else that costs time.
Solo-dungeon grind on your focus hero. One hero, one easy dungeon, repeated until the hero is at its next star gate. Then switch focus to the next hero.
Here Be Monsters waves. Run the waves your focus hero can clear cleanly for the steady XP and shards.
Raids for gold. Raid while you need gold for the next star gate — the XP is a bonus, the gold is the point.
Lost Battlefield chances. Use your 5 daily chances once you are over 10,000 might. The gems fund talent rolls and hero pulls; the Fame funds Destiny.

Every week

Collect the weekly sign-in reward (200 gems per the wiki's F2P guide) and check the weekly Lost Battlefield season result — collect season gems before the next season replaces them.
Hero Trials. Run the trials for the gem payout, and remember the extra attempt every 6 hours.
Guild events. Show up for guild wars and boss fights for the XP and the merits that convert into essence.
Review the roster. Which hero is closest to a star gate? Which one has a skill capped by its star? One look a week keeps the plan honest.

The loop in one line: books and expeditions every day, one hero at a time on easy dungeons, badges saved for star gates and nothing else. A player who does that loop for a month will have a roster that looks nothing like a player who leveled six heroes at once and spent badges on rolls.

Leveling Traps: Where Players Stall

Leveling a full team at once and splitting every battle's XP six ways. The single biggest leveling mistake. One hero at a time, always.
Spending Honor Badges on hero rolls instead of saving them for star upgrades. 500 badges feels cheap early; every hero eventually stalls at a star gate waiting on badges, and the regret is permanent. Gems buy heroes; badges buy levels.
Leaving Quest Board experience books unclaimed while heroes sit below a star gate. The books are the precision tool and they sit in a different menu from the hero.
Feeding duplicate heroes away as ordinary sacrifices instead of using them for double skill XP — or saving them for evolution. Duplicates are the scarcest input in the game; treat them that way.
Chasing hard dungeons for XP when an easy dungeon cleared without casualties pays more per hour. Deaths and slow clears cost more than the harder dungeon's bonus.
Rolling talents on heroes you have not committed to. Talent rolls are for heroes going to 200 and beyond, not for fillers.
Converting experience tomes into Aetherocks before your roster is maxed. The tomes are hero XP; the conversion rate is a bad trade until you have nothing left to level.
Trusting a "20-star" guide. Some low-quality guides claim a 20-star maximum and that duplicates raise star level. The wiki is clear: 10 stars, bought with gold, Honor Badges and flames. The 20-star claim is wrong — do not plan around it.

Patch State (as of November 10, 2026)

Newest update: October 10, 2026 (Google Play notes). Official Server: new hero Bone Baroness with skin and portrait, and the new Narcia Farm event. Classic Server: new hero Ninja, Hero Evolution added (unlocks at level 180), Vlad Dracula "Evil Clown" skin. The Narcia "Crown of Thorns" GvG system is the 2026 headline feature, and the Heroes Altar cap is 233 heroes after the August 2026 update.

2026 hero cadence: Crazy Tycoon (April 30), Terrafica and Dorothy with Wizard of Oz collaboration assets (June 27), Wardrum Demon (August 1), Bone Baroness (October 10). New heroes arrive with launch events that are usually the cheapest way to obtain them.

What to watch: the Narcia Farm event's rewards and the next hero release — both move the "which hero to level" answer. The leveling math — star costs, book values, badge totals — has not changed in years and is not expected to; it is the stable core this guide is built on. The one open question is whether the wiki's free-to-play gem figures still match the 2026 client, since the F2P page is old and marked unfinished; if a figure in our farming guide looks off in game, the game is right and the wiki is stale.

Leveling Time Planner

Castle Clash Castle Clash Gold & Gems Farming Guide

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you level up heroes fast in Castle Clash?

Deploy one hero at a time on an easy dungeon you can clear without casualties, since XP is split equally among deployed heroes. Add Quest Board experience books from the Tactics Academy and daily Hero Expedition runs on top, and clear dungeons so your heroes do not stall at a star gate.

What is the max hero level in Castle Clash?

Level 200 at 10 stars, per the Castle Clash wiki — one star gate every 20 levels, each costing gold, Honor Badges and dungeon flames. Legendary heroes can evolve past that shape, but 200 is the star-table cap.

What are experience books in Castle Clash?

Green (1,000 XP), blue (5,000 XP) and purple (20,000 XP) books spent in the Tactics Academy at the Heroes Altar, earned from Quest Board quests. Essence, traded for merits, is the parallel shortcut.

How many Honor Badges does it take to max a hero?

814,000 Honor Badges in total to take a non-evolved hero to level 200, per the wiki's star table — 34,000 to reach level 100, 214,000 to reach 160, and 414,000 to reach 180. Evolved heroes pay slightly less: 800,000 at Evo1 and 780,000 at Evo2.

What is hero evolution in Castle Clash?

Evolution is the post-200 progression for legendary heroes at 10 stars, level 180 to 200. Evo1 costs 1 evolution rune, 1,000 red crystals and 1 duplicate copy; Evo2 costs 5 runes, 2,000 crystals and 3 duplicates. Evolved heroes start at 4 stars (Evo1) or 5 stars (Evo2) and gain new stat formulas and access to equipment.

Should I spend Honor Badges on hero rolls?

No. The fan guides warn explicitly against it: 500 badges feels cheap early, but every hero eventually stalls at a star gate waiting on badges. Spend badges on star upgrades first. Gems buy heroes; badges buy levels.

Sources

Every fact in this guide carries its source. Star-gate costs, book values and Destiny totals come from the Castle Clash wiki; 2026 update facts come from the official Google Play listing; the rest is attributed to the fan guides named below. Last checked November 10, 2026.

MMODude Editorial Team

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