Experience

This page explains in detail the mechanics related to character level and experience (EXP) gain.

Experience requirements
The following table presents the experience required for each level, up to the level cap of 40. Currently, this table applies identically to every character in the game, regardless of rarity. This also includes nameless enemy units encountered in Story Maps and the Training Tower.

The experience required for any particular level can be computed as follows:



Gaining Experience
Characters can gain experience in the following ways:
 * dealing damage to enemy units
 * healing friendly units
 * using shards and/or crystals

If a character is dead at the end of a battle, any experience it had gained during that battle is kept. Experienced gained through combat (damage and healing) can be increased up to a maximum of 100% through castle upgrades.

Trivia : Before 2.5.0 update, a character defeated would have lost any experience gained.

Damage
The primary means of obtaining experience is through fighting enemies in battles. Experience is granted to allied units immediately after combat, if they survive. Enemy units do not gain experience.

The amount of experience gained in this way is unaffected by whether an allied unit or an enemy unit initiates combat. Additionally, combat experience is unaffected by the amount of damage dealt. However, if no damage is dealt to the enemy, no experience is gained.

The main factor for determining the amount of experience awarded from combat is the level difference between the allied unit and enemy unit. The range of levels enemies which grant experience can be in, is described on the Advanced Mechanics page and also determine if an enemy unit grants SP when defeated. This range depends on the rarity of both units, and the level of the player unit.

The below table describes the base experience an enemy unit grants, as a function of how many levels higher than the minimum experience-granting level the enemy unit is.

After 2 attacks on the same enemy, every subsequent attack accumulates a dropoff equal to 25% of the base value is applied. This is to say that the 3rd attack will grant 75% of the base EXP, the 4th 50%, and so on to a minimum of 0%. If the enemy unit is defeated in combat, the amount of experience is multiplied by 10 and all dropoff is ignored.

If a special skill is triggered during combat, any experience received is multiplied by 1.5. For example, landing the killing blow on an enemy unit 2 levels higher than the allowed minimum, using an attack that triggers Growing Flame, will award 120 EXP (240 with fully upgraded Castle).

The amount of experience gained in any single combat cannot exceed the EXP required for the next level. For example, a level 10 character can gain a maximum of 259 EXP (the amount of EXP required to get from lv. 11 to lv. 12). Because of this, it is impossible to gain more than one level at a time.

Healing
In addition to gaining experience through damage, heroes are able to gain experience through healing their allies with a staff. Use of other assist skills will not grant any experience. This experience gain has a base value of 50 EXP (100 with fully upgraded Castle), regardless of the caster/target level, the rank of the healing ability used, or the amount healed. Similarly to damage abilities, the amount of EXP gained will be increased by 50% of the base value if a special skill is triggered during the action.

After 4 heals in a battle, each subsequent heal will be affected by a cumulative drop off equal to 20% the base value. This is to say that the 5th heal will grant 40 EXP, the 6th heal 30 EXP, and so on to a minimum of 0 EXP. This drop off will occur regardless of heal target and the current round, and is completely independent of the damage EXP dropoff. Effectively, this means that a single unit will be able to gain EXP up to 8 times per battle for a total of 300 EXP (600 with fully upgraded Castle, or even more with Specials).

Shards and Crystals

 * Main article: Shards and Crystals

It is possible to level up units without taking them into battle using shards and crystals. This can be done in the "Allies" → "Level Up" menu, where shards and crystals can be redeemed for experience at a 1:1 ratio. Experience gained in this way is identical to that gained in combat and will not adversely affect the unit's stats in any way.

Shards are used to level a character to Lv. 20 while crystals are used for Lv. 21 and above. Shards and crystals are available in a variety of colors corresponding to the colors available to characters. Each shard or crystal can only be used to level up characters of the corresponding color. Universal (yellow) shards and crystals are also available, which can be used to level up characters of any color. Color-specific shards are consumed before universal shards if both are available.

Note that shards and crystals are NOT affected by the castle bonus, and will always provide one experience per shard/crystal.