Elder Tree Guide / Upgrade Order (November 2022)

The Elder Tree introduced classes in AFK Arena that will gain additional abilities and also stat boosts in the Elder Tree by investing Twisted Essence that you gain during Twisted Realm boss fights (and some other event-related rewards).

In this guide, I will show you what Elder Tree skills are “sweet spots” and which ones aren’t that great to give you a general upgrade order to get the “biggest bang for your buck (aka Twisted Essence)”

Flawless Droplets & Twisted Essence

There are two “currencies” you use in the Elder Tree is called Flawless Drops and Twisted Essence and they are basically skill points that you need to collect in order to level up your Elder Tree.

Flawless Droplets

So, with every hero epic you get for the first time or every hero that you ascend to a new ascension tier you will get Flawless Drops – when you get another copy of that hero you won’t get additional Flawless Droplets.

Let’s say you get your first epic copy of Lucius, you will get a Flawless Droplet for that. Now you will get another epic Lucius and this time you won’t get any Flawless Droplet because you already got one for the first time you got that Lucius. But if you now do ascend those to an Epic+ Lucius you will get Flawless Droplets for ascending Lucius for the first time. If you now get 2 more epic Lucius and ascend them as well you won’t get any more Flawless Droplets. Hope this example makes sense to you…

Those are used to upgrade the main roots of the Elder Tree which will give all of your heroes a slight boost in stats.

Twisted Essence

After you have upgraded with enough Flawless Droplets you’ll be able to start specialization in the Elder Tree, according to the different classes which each hero belongs to.

This gets now more individual because it heavily depends in what kind of heroes you use. The more heroes of one class you actually use actively the more sense is there to start spending your Twisted Essence there.

You can get Twisted Essence either from the Twisted Realm or along with your Gold, EXP and items from the map AFK Reward.

Elder Tree Upgrade Strategy

So, let’s talk about the strategy when upgrading your Elder Tree.

The main root upgrades with the Flawless Droplets won’t give you much option, you will collect them when getting more epics and ascending but it doesn’t make much sense to ascend something just to get Flawless Droplets. Simply upgrade as much as you can when you get them.

Elder Tree Branches Sweet Spots

Every branch has some sweet spots where you have the best return of your investment rate. They are good points where you should stop investing in a certain branch and invest in others until you have gotten their sweet spots.

Taking this all into account, you will have the following recommended upgrade order that you should follow. This order depends on what your main carry hero(es) classes.

There are some (general) important levels – you have Level 5/15/25 that unlock new skills and all levels ending at x2 & x7 that will give % stats increase.

Stage 1

Get all branches to Level 5 in the first step to unlock their first skill. Some are nice others not that great but all will give you a significant boost and should be your first step of spending in the Elder Tree.

Now check what class your main carry hero is (except tank class) and get that branch to Level 15 to unlock the 2nd skill there. Especially early-to-mid-game this will help you go through the chapters and unlock more content in AFK ARena.

Lvl 15

The ranger branch is the best one of all and getting the next skill unlocked with Level 15 here is a nice boost, and you absolutely will use at least one ranger class hero as they are the main damage dealers in AFK Arena.

Lvl 15

The 2nd tank skill is great as it will deal %-based damage and as you use at least one in your team at this stage in AFK Arena, it’s some nice extra damage to have with Level 15.

Lvl 15

Now get the extra shield with the Level 15 support class branch that will help a lot in close situations.

Lvl 15

The 2nd skill unlocked means some extra energy and although it’s not game-chaning, it helps here and there and you should get it now.

Lvl 10

The warrior branch is the weakest branch of all the classes in the Elder Tree, so you can get it to Level 10 now (if you use warrior heroes in your main team composition) or you can just leave it at this point to continue with the next stage.

Stage 2

Lvl 30

Unlocking the 3rd skill here and getting some extra buffs for range class is the best start once you completed all the steps in Stage 1 above.

Lvl 25

Although the 3rd skill has a long cooldown, it will do an impact and as you’re running at least one support class hero in every setup, this is a great next pick here.

Lvl 25

On paper, you might think the 3rd mage class skill in the Elder Tree is useless and it can only trigger once, but it will have an impact and get you through a lot close situations and should be your next priority. Also, the additional stats are quite useful as well.

Lvl 25

The additional health is well-needed for your tank class heroes and help a lot in survivability and many of them are based on the stats so a great time now to get the tank branch up to Level 25, too.

Lvl 10

If you haven’t done that in Stage 1, now it’s time to get the warrior branch to Level 10 to get some stats and keep up with the other branches. No need to go further at this point.

Stage 3

Lvl 45

Level 45 on the ranger tree might sound a lot but you will feel the difference. The additional stats and improvement of the Elder Tree skills are significant and will help you go through the campaign stages a lot as well in all other game modes in AFK Arena.

Lvl 37

Next up the support tree will be your choice, improving the skills and also ramp up the base stats of your heroes of this class that will scale. I found Level 37 to be the sweet-spot at this point.

Lvl 37

The same here for the tank class, the additional stats and improved Elter Tree skills will benefit the survivability and sustain of your tank class hero(es) and should be the next invest.

Lvl 12

Low-hanging fruit and some percentage boost here for Level 12 of the warrior class. I recommend it and it’s cheap to get compared to the other ones to wrap up this stage of Elder Tree upgrades.

Stage 4

Lvl 62

Now start investing in the ranger class branch again for improved skill levels and more base stats for your heroes. These heroes are so vital and you need every point you get here and Level 62 is the sweet spot, unlocking more skill level and %-based stats improvement.

Lvl 62

Yes, the mage class branch was not upgraded much in the previous stage but now it’s time to work on it as some core teams you will have to use by now require it so invest here also up to Level 62.

Lvl 47

Next up would be the support class branch with some more level to unlock another skill level and get the two extra levels for %-based stats increase.

Lvl 47

Some for the tank class branch after you have upgraded the support class to Level 47.

Stage 5

Lvl 77

The next sweetspot here is Level 77 with a lot more base stats increase that will. help your ranger class heroes to scale better when the level deficits get a lot higher.

Lvl 77

Same for the mage class branch after you’re done with the ranger branch to Level 77. Great stats increase to handle the increasing level deficits.

Lvl 62

Unlock another skill level and more base stats here with Level 62.

Lvl 62

Some for the tank class branch after you have upgraded the support class to Level 62.

Lvl 27

Optional: now you can also invest some into the warrior class branch but only if you use them in your core teams! The warrior class branch is by far the weakest and you should invest here as little as possible and there’s a lot of players that keep it at Level 12!

Stage 6

L. 107

In the last stage getting the ranger class branch to Level 107 is the best to do here. This is far don’t he line but gets the biggest impact looking at the meta teams and the level deficits.

L. 107

Same for the mage class branch after you’re done with the ranger branch to Level 107. Great stats increase to handle the increasing level deficits.

Lvl 77

Unlock another skill level and more base stats here with Level 77.

Lvl 77

Some for the tank class branch after you have upgraded the support class to Level 77.

Lvl 35

Optional: as I said int he previous section, a lot of players leave their warrior branch at Level 12, so only invest here further if you need those heroes in your core teams, otherwise the drops are better invested in other branches!


Dura’s Sustenance (Support Tree)

The Level 5 Skill your support heroes will get a shield for the most-injured hero once the support hero casts their ultimate for the first time. This is helpful and can help, but actually I don’t see that drop that often before because they need to fill their energy bar first. Still quite alright for only need 5 levels.

The Level 15 Skill gets activated the hero that gets the shield will also get healing equal to the attack rating – so this is normally 10-30% of their health and only in a few situations making much of a difference because the hero will regenerate himself anyway. Still useful here and there and worth getting.

The Level 25 Skill this one here would be insane but the cooldown is killing it quite off and the gained energy is not that much that it’s actually doing a very high impact.

Dura’s Sorcery (Mage Tree)

Level 5 Skill is actually a nice one that will boost damage after the mage class hero used his ultimate for 3 seconds. It won’t change the world but with heroes like Shemira or Belinda in this class it is a nice buff.

The Level 15 Skill is quite useless for me. Yes, it’s 30 energy for every hero and with multiple mage heroes it’s some energy but it’s not that much that it will make a huge difference, especially as it only can be used after having used the ultimate so you won’t get an energy advantage over the enemy team.

Level 25 Skill is a bad one. It’s only triggered once per battle and when it’s getting triggered the ally is normally pretty much done anyway, only really rare occasions where this ability has been turning the tides.

Dura’s Might (Warrior Tree)

The Level 5 Skill will make warrior heroes tank crushers and helps a lot against shields like the one from Lucius – my only problem is that there are not that many heroes in that class that you would use as your favorite damage dealers.

The Level 15 Skill is well, alright, but I think the 3 seconds is quite short to give any real advantage unless that warrior hero is under heavy fire and can escape with that shield (what I highly doubt) and the level 25 Skill give a very short Life Leech boost that will not make much difference in just 3 seconds because it won’t make the damage output higher but rather only give some minor healing.

For me, the warrior tree is the weakest of all of them because the blessings are only very temporary or specifically (require the enemy to be under shield)

Dura’s Fortitude (Tank Tree)

The tank tree is very much on spot and already the first skill with the automatically healing will give you such a big boost. You can have your tank healed automatically for 25% over 10 seconds when he falls below 30% health. For me even the single one to get first of all others.

The AoE damage from the Level 15 Skill is nice to have because it’s 3% and you can get it multiple times when you have a tank, like Brutus or Lucius, that heal themself back up. Also when a tank is going down fast, he will at least deal some burst damage.

The Level 25 Skill is quite alright because you get more health but the Level 5 and Level 15 are the ones that you’re really after. I’d recommend you to go to Level 15 here in the tank tree and then progress in the other trees first.

Dura’s Celerity (Ranger Tree)

The level 5 ability is the worst of all her, also because only triggered once during a battle, but the plain stat increase can help with good rng.

Level 15 ability is nailing it, simply dealing a nice amount of damage that can’t be dodged (not working for bosses!).

Level 25 is really nice against summoner enemy heroes.

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