A few days ago, 7-star gear was added to Returners and all the heroes’ survivability and strength have dramatically increased. While the stats of all heroes have been upgraded, Hercules is one of the few who have really maximized the effectiveness of this change.

However, Hercules wasn’t as popular in the past since his melee auto attacks always put him as far into the fray as possible, which dramatically lowered his survivability. Although he can deal significant damage, he often falls before he can really deliver on his potential; this tendency led to him being replaced with rangers or mages. Things are different now.

Power up with his ultimate and unleash true might! Hercules’ skills

Hercules’ biggest strength is his self-enhancing ultimate, which is also the raw expression of the story of Hercules. Lion Strike is a support skill that allows him to dash towards a target and stun. Lion Force damages and slows targets within a certain area, but it contributes little to his damage in general.

On the other hand, his ultimate skill, Godly Rage, transforms him into an incarnation of the god of battle, dramatically increasing his Crit Rate and DMG. This is different from Jumong and Dr. Jekyll who increase their DPS by enhancing ATK SPD.

His ultimate also grants him an increase in movement speed and immunity to CC skills; his HP notwithstanding, he becomes an unstoppable force.

League, Arena, 16th floor of Specter Chase, and even Adventure!

When just equipped with 6-star gear, Hercules is not really worth using as one of your main heroes due to his low survivability. However, he starts to become quite useful for all types of content after equipping 7-star gear.

In League and Arena, the Black Dragon set is the most recommended for Hercules. Not only does it increase ATK DMG, Crit Rate, HP, and DEF, the Black Dragon Armor’s cooldown reduction is fundamental for Hercules due to his ultimate skill. The set effect also increases the Crit DMG and Rate, which can then be further enhanced by the Crit buff from his ultimate.

Two pieces in particular that strengthen Hercules are the Black Dragon Greatsword and Ring, which provide an HP Gain Per Kill bonus. This is very efficient with Hercules since his high damage per hit often lets him land the final blow on targets. In League and Arena where multiple heroes are fighting one another, you can often see Hercules rejoining the battle after restoring his health significantly thanks to a kill he just secured.

If the enemy team is made up of MAG DMG heroes and it seems difficult for Hercules to survive the enemies’ attacks, the Black Dragon Greatsword and Armor, along with the Divine Ring and Helmet are suggested. These increase MAG DEF, and the Divine Helmet and Boots all have Crit DMG options which supplement the damage loss from the absence of the 5-piece set effect.

The 16th floor of Specter Chase is his main stage. On this floor, you’ll find the Blood Queen and her four minions, and all of them use CC skills, so heroes with CC immunity shine the most at this stage. This is why he is used as the main DPS along with Dr. Jekyll on this floor.

In addition, Hercules prefers to attack mages first and thus aims for the Blood Queen right when the battle starts. His auto attack damage is formidable enough to bypass her Defensive Aura, which ignores DMG below a certain threshold. Note that all monsters on the 16th floor deal MAG DMG, so 3 pieces of Black Dragon with Divine Helmet and Boots would be much better than the full Black Dragon set.

Hercules carries out his role in any team composition thanks to his exceptional firepower. However, Hercules’ survivability - and the survivability of any melee hero - is a persistent problem that must be constantly addressed. Thus, a taunting tank needs to be part of the team for Hercules to safely deal damage.

Although Hercules’ Lion Strike is an AoE skill, it’s not that great in combat, and he’s more specialized in focusing on a single target. It is, therefore, better to make a team centered around single-target combat.

In regards to Runes, the Crit Rate Rune is often chosen along with ATK DMG and percentage DMG Runes. For Defense Runes, a combination of PHY DEF, MAG DEF, and Ranged DEF is generally used. There are a number of different options for Support Runes; you can equip either HP Increase, HP Gain Per Hit, or HP Gain Per Kill. Any combination of them can be viable depending on your preference.