One month in: am I heading the right direction?

Hello, and thanks for your time (if you wish to give it).

I've been playing for about a month and want to make sure I'm focusing on the right things. Currently I'm spending SoT on:
* Quests when they're available (such as Dark Alley)
* Lord of Light. Right now I'm farming level VII because it's the level I can beat 100% of the time without taking the chance that I'll have to spend Ironite to revive my toons. I only started farming LoL a couple of days. It occurred to me that I wasn't really trying to evolve any of my 4* toons and that 3* evolution shards were relatively easy to farm there. Since doing so, I've been able to evolve Doomsday Eddie, Ibuki, and Sentinel Allied Bomber Boy.

I've completely mastered Ailing Kingdom, Kingdom of the Sands, and Battlefield. I've completed (without mastery) normal and hard in Underworld, but haven't tackled madness yet.

So am I putting my time and resources in the right places?

Next question: here is my current list of 5* and 4* toons. Which ones should I be focusing on building up first?

5*
- Viking Eddie
- Edward the Great
- Seventh Son Eddie
- Aces High Eddie
- Iron Eddie
- Doomsday Eddie
- Sentinel Allied Bomber Boy
- Ibuki
- Warlord

4* Eddies
- base
- Run to the Hills
- Mummy
- Pharoah
- Carriage Rider
- Shadow Wicker Man
- Speed of Light
- Wicker Man (x2)
- Fear of the Dark
- Soldier

4* Warrior class
- Allied Soldier
- Golden Son
- Hellraiser
- Mayan Priestess
- Wicker Man
- Troll
- Undead Axis Gunner
- Ragna
- Pyro Soldier
- Hellhound

4* Sentinel class
- Angel of Strife
- Banshee
- Corrupt Droid
- Derby Demon
- Golden Son
- Harpy
- Hellraiser
- Allied Soldier
- Pyro Soldier
- Ichiyou
- Corrupt Rescuer
- Mayan Priestess
- Soulless Demon

4* Magus class
- Corrupt Droid
- Demon Officer
- Kari
- Child of the Damned
- Chopper
- Hellraiser
- Mayan Priestess

4* Gunner class
- Child of the Damned
- Eda
- Golden Son
- Undead Rescuer

4* Assassin class
- Astra
- Koku
- Undead Axis Gunner
- Pyro Soldier

Again, thanks again if any of you are willing to take a look and make sure I'm heading in the right direction. For now I'm a free player. May sink a little real-world money into the game if I see something that's worth it.

You are on the right track. I suggest creating a team of maxed level 100 sharded characters with fully leveled talismans as fast as possible. I started a second account a few months back and did just that. Type in "redeem code" in the search bar of this forum and redeem every ironite code that still works, then farming Lord of Light to evolve and power characters, and clearing Brave New World to get the generous first time rewards and rare talismans. Iron Ed basic move Burning Fires and Assassin Demon Spawn passive giving Crave is very potent combo to clear most battles in every difficulty level. Just spam-stun and You can clear most everything except Boss levels, use ironite to continue and complete these to get the first time rewards. Especially good with Prisoner when you get him for the few opponents who may be immune to stun. Doomsday is also worth investing in, he is good for PvP and hi damage. He is often used at top levels still and needs to be sharded, Iron Ed really doesn't if you just spam-stun with him. Don't waste shards on other Eddies on your list until you have lots of other more valuable characters sharded, like Gunner Shinobi Ibuki, Sentinel Mayan Priestess, Assassin Koku. Many of the newer 4 star characters are much more powerful and require very few skill shards to wake up their skills compared to the old school originals. Some really good 3 stars like Sentinel Desert Guardian (Stormseye :) for a damage blocker&passive disabler are worth evolving and Sharding too. You will need a good multi hitter for Dragon King at Brave New World top levels, the 3 star Gunner Artillery Dog sharded works nice here.

As a good rule you should have a blocker, a cleanser, a healer/revived and a damager/disabler. Once you have a sharded team of the right characters with the right maxed talismans it opens up getting through all the monthly events/challenges. I wasted a shit ton of resources on the wrong talismans and shards on junk characters, you should pinpoint DDE and shard him asap, then put a support crew of a blocker (Desert Guardian cuz he is easy to get and very useful) and Ibuki/Koku. Later you can get Magus Lilith, Alchemist, Prisoner etc but this team is a good combo for the initial investment.

Astra is a good investment for shards. She's a multi hitter and hits hard. Seventh son would be there sections of work on. He's as good as Doomsday, but more a single target hitter. Like above, you are in the right path. Get two good teams built up and you can play about any level any world. Once you finish the levels, then go back and get the skulls. Don't be in a rush and enjoy the game. Each Eddie is unique and fun to play with. You'll eventually develop favorites, as we all have. Welcome to the game and forum.

So far so good. Like edsel and HuckFinn said you have some great characters already. Doomsday is a great all around Eddie. Astra can help with the brave new world dungeons. Seventh Son does pretty good damage for a magus. Fear of the Dark Eddie can be a useful farmer. Some of the characters on your list I like to use are magus chopper, Astra, sentinel corrupt rescuer, the ninjas, gunner golden son and gunner child of the damned, but as you play, I'm sure you're get a feel for the kind of characters you like to use with the talismans you have at your disposal. Resource management is quite important, but you're off to a great start. Also, the people on this forum are really knowledgeable and helpful, especially coming up with which characters can be used for certain challenges. And if you haven't yet, try to get some troopers, the badges really help!

Yep great advice so far. Only thing I'd add is that Iron Eddie sharded - keep an eye out for a 3* assassin demon spawn. Its passive gives crave for 3 turns, meaning you can stun an entire team 1st go in PVE!

Some other interesting ones:

- Ichiyou with a pair of fortune talis (if you got a set from the recent event?) is reaaaaaallllyyyy hard to kill. Can cause a draw and/or take down heaps of tough teams.
- Id shard DDE & Iron Eddie. 7th Son is good, but Id do those two eddies first, then get teams around them before sharding him up. In fact, you probably dont need to fully shard eddies immmediately, they suck a heap of shards and youd probably get better value sharding the rest of their 'team'.
- For teams, Id follow the other guys recommendations, just look for the little purple demon critter too!

Lastly, try to work on your talismans. Good chars is one thing. Great talisman sets step things up a heap. Dont invest in crummy burn/boost/shock sets initially. The exception is a couple sets of mystical health talismans and some assassin/voids. Try to work on ones you get from BNW - Guard, advantage, immunity, chance, shell, immortal, vampire, enduring, thorn, echo, strike. Also trooper sets - steel, destiny, titan, force.

When building sets, try to think of types and synergies too. For example, mythical green 2 sets are good, because you can get enough health just from them and you have 4 talis then for improving attack. Whereas mythical isnt so good for 3 talis sets unless you are looking at a char that scales damage on HP.

Then of course special event talismans, but might be a bit longer before you can reliably collect full sets. Still, even getting 1 or 2 is good, they come around reasonably regularly! On my first primordial event I got a set just grinding out the normal dungeon, using up spare ironite I'd built up over time.

Anyway, good luck!

Characters I would focus on would be Doomsday, iron,seventh son, pharaoh. Then non Eddie's: troll, ragna, angel of strife, Kari, Mayan priestess, g child of the dammed, eda,and astra. From this event if you can get enough blood fragments go for the sentinel killer or if not enough then banshee and some warlords. Clear the skull quests as soon as possible so you can hit their dungeons daily. This gives you souls and leveling materials.