The Grove has plenty of heroes who know how to sell themselves on the selection screen. Faleor immediately promises a big fireball. Halon promises chain lightning. Ryzhekhvostka turns fauns from expendable material into a full-fledged main stack. Vatavna offers to rewrite neutral units on the map twice a day. And then Aunt Dalear appears on the list. No starting spell. No bonus to specific creatures. No free crystals. The description just says experience and stats.

Sounds boring. Until you start counting.

Let me set the boundaries right away. I'm talking about a regular game in Classic or Single Hero, where the main hero reaches at least level 12–15. Not about Arena, not about Sprint, and not about a map that ends on day six. There the answer might be different. All numbers are current as of Patch #12, released July 10, 2026. In early access, such a text can easily become outdated after a couple of patches, but on the current balance, my choice is Dalear.

Why her? Because Dalear's specialization does two things at once. Every two levels, she gains one additional primary stat increase and +5% to experience gained.

Not once per game. Not after fulfilling a special condition. Every two levels.

At level two, that's one extra stat and +5% experience. At level six, it's three stats and +15%. At level ten, five stats and +25%. At level twelve, six stats and +30%. At level twenty, the specialization grants ten additional stat points and +50% experience. I mean ten points total, not +10 to each parameter, but the number is still huge. Additionally, Dalear starts with basic Insight, which separately gives another +20% experience gained. Her starting stats are 2 Attack, 1 Defense, 2 Spell Power, and 2 Knowledge, and her starting army ranges are 10–15, 6–9, and 4–6 creatures. So she doesn't pay for accelerated development with a weak starting army.

This is where the specialization starts to snowball. Dalear gains more experience, so she reaches the next even level sooner. At that level, she gets another stat and increases the experience bonus by another 5%. The next fight, chest, or library again gives her more than a normal hero.

This is not a simple linear increase. It's a snowball loop.

It feels especially good on rich maps. For example, the Lost Library can give 6000, 8000, or 10,000 experience with probabilities of 30%, 40%, and 30% respectively. I won't calculate the exact final number considering all of Dalear's bonuses, because the official wiki doesn't specify the order of stacking all experience modifiers. But the principle is clear: the more large experience sources on the map, the stronger a hero whose specialization increases the value of each of them.

To understand the scale of ten additional stats, compare them to map objects. The Mountain Monastery permanently gives the hero +2 to Attack, Defense, Spell Power, and Knowledge. That's eight stat points for 5000 gold. Dalear's specialization at level twenty gives ten—more than a whole Mountain Monastery, and she doesn't have to find it on the map or pay to visit it.

The math doesn't end there. Expert Insight has "Endless Charisma": +1 to Attack, Defense, Spell Power, and Knowledge. That's another four total stats. With Tactics, the bonus doubles—giving +2 to all four parameters, i.e., eight points.

As a result, by level twenty, the combination of Dalear's specialization and Endless Charisma with Tactics can yield 18 additional primary stat points. Not counting regular level-up increases. Not counting artifacts. Not counting monasteries, labyrinths, scales, and other objects.

Yes, you need to collect specific skills for that. But the ceiling of 18 total stats exists, and it's taken directly from the current ability descriptions, not from the author's imagination.

There's also a less obvious reason why Insight is especially good for the Grove. The sub-skill "Civil Innovations" increases law point gain by 30%. If the hero has Leadership, the bonus doubles to 60%.

Law points for the Grove are not a decorative bar you can ignore until the late game. "Elite Fauns" gives +2, +4, and +6 to faun growth and increases their melee damage by 50%. "Fertile Soil" increases growth in external dwellings by 100% or 200%. "Elite Cylini" adds one growth and +3, +6, or +9 damage. "Children of the Wild" gives Grove heroes +2 or +4 to sight range and +15 or +30 movement points. There's even a law that reduces the cooldown of all battle spells by one round.

This creates a strange picture. Formally, Dalear's specialization is about developing one hero. In reality, it can unlock movement bonuses for all heroes, growth in external dwellings, creatures of different levels, and spell cooldown reduction faster.

That is, her specialization works on three levels at once: strengthens the hero herself, accelerates her leveling, and speeds up the faction's laws.

Most competitors' bonuses end with one spell or one type of creature.

The most obvious candidate against Dalear is Faleor. And in the first week, he might indeed be better.

Faleor starts with Advanced Whisper of Elements, Expert Fireball, and the same large starting army of Guardian: 10–15, 6–9, and 4–6 creatures. His Fireball hits an increased area, and the effective Spell Power of this spell increases by one every two hero levels.

A basic Fireball costs 13 mana and deals 50 plus 10 per Spell Power to each target in a one-cell radius. Faleor starts with two Spell Power, so his first Fireball deals 70 damage to each target hit. Hit two stacks—140 total damage. Hit three—210. And all this at level one. The Expert version also covers an increased area. The only innate exception is that Fireball does not affect phoenixes.

With two Knowledge, the hero has 30 mana: base 10 plus 10 per Knowledge. Two Fireballs cost 26, so Faleor has enough mana for them. But a level two spell has a standard cooldown of three rounds, including the round of casting. He can't throw them consecutively without additional effects.

That's why Faleor looks stronger than Dalear right away. He doesn't promise to become good later. He already deals 70 damage to multiple stacks and allows taking fights that another hero would have to avoid.

On a short map, I'll take Faleor and won't even think twice.

The problem starts after the starting zone. His entire specialization continues to empower one Fireball. If the opponent spreads out stacks, has magic resistance, or simply fields an army that one mass spell can't break, Faleor's value drops. Meanwhile, Dalear's additional stats work for any spell, any hero attack, and any creature in the army.

A similar story with Halon. Chain Lightning looks scarier than Fireball and can indeed win an early fight with one cast. It costs 24 mana, deals 100 plus 20 per Spell Power to the first target, then jumps to another target within three cells, losing 50% damage. Halon's Expert version loses half as much on jumps, and his effective Spell Power increases by one every two levels. But 24 mana is almost the entire starting pool of a hero with two Knowledge. After one cast from 30 mana, only six remain. Also, Chain Lightning does not affect Cylini at all.

Halon can win a specific fight more decisively than Dalear. But he doesn't necessarily win the whole map more decisively. These are different things that are constantly conflated in hero discussions.

Dalear's real competitor is not Faleor or Halon. It's Vatavna.

After a recent buff, her maximum mana increases by 20% immediately and by another 5% every four levels. Additionally, each adventure spell Vatavna can cast one extra time per day. At level twenty, her maximum mana bonus is already 45%.

Vatavna starts with two Knowledge, so a base pool of 30 mana. The specialization raises it to 36. Her Primordial Chaos costs 17 mana and is usually cast once per day. Vatavna gets a second cast, and two casts cost 34 mana. So, already at the start of the game, she can cast Primordial Chaos twice a day and still have two mana left.

The spell itself turns a neutral stack into another stack of the same strength. At level two, the radius doubles; at level three, the new target's strength decreases by 5%; at level four, by 10%. This is not direct damage, but on a large map, the ability to reshape inconvenient neutrals twice a day can save army, mana, and travel days.

And here I won't pretend absolute certainty. On a huge map with many adventure spells, Vatavna might be more useful than Dalear. An extra cast of Town Portal, Second Wind, or another powerful global spell can provide more than a few stats.

But that's already a condition: the map must be large enough, the hero must get the right spells, and the game must last long enough for the daily extra casts to pay off. Dalear doesn't wait for that coincidence. Her bonus works on any map where there is experience at all.

There's also Ryzhekhvostka.

When playing through fauns, she can achieve numbers that Dalear simply doesn't have.

Ryzhekhvostka adds one to faun growth in all cities. In her army, fauns gain +1 speed, +1 initiative, +20% health, and +1 Attack and Defense per three hero levels. At level twelve, that's +4 Attack and +4 Defense to the entire faun stack.

The base weekly growth of Grove's level 1 creatures is currently 13. Ryzhekhvostka raises it to 14. The fully developed law "Elite Fauns" adds another six. That's 20 fauns per week instead of the base 13—a 53.8% increase. And at the same time, those fauns get +50% melee damage from the law, plus the hero's bonuses to health, speed, initiative, Attack, and Defense.

But as soon as you replace fauns with Cylini, phoenixes, or a mixed late-game composition, most of the specialization turns off. Dalear doesn't care who is the main stack at the moment. Her Attack and Defense strengthen everyone, Spell Power strengthens spells, Knowledge provides mana, and experience continues to accelerate the hero.

The other heroes aren't useless either; their ceiling just depends more on the scenario. Gorel the Spearman at level twenty gives the army +15% damage to normal attacks and another +5% to ranged and long attack damage. Mryava at level ten produces three crystals per day and doubles the number of crystals found on the map. Minstrel from level twelve, starting from the second round of combat, generates six concentration points and takes the same amount from the enemy. These are good specializations. But Gorel requires a physical army, Mryava requires a real crystal shortage, and Minstrel requires a fight that doesn't end in the first round.

Dalear also has a weakness, and it's pointless to hide it. She is not the best hero on day one. Possibly not the best hero of the first week. Her specialization only becomes truly nasty after several even levels. If an encounter with the enemy happens on day seven, Faleor, Halon, or Ryzhekhvostka might arrive noticeably stronger.

But the question wasn't about the best hero for early rushing. Nor about the best hero for one predetermined build.

In a blind pick, we don't know which spells will appear in the guild. We don't know if there will be enough fauns on the map. We don't know if ranged damage will be the core of the army. We don't know if crystals will be a real limitation. We don't even know if the game will end at level twelve or go to level twenty.

Therefore, the best all-round hero is the one whose specialization turns into empty text the least often.

Dalear's almost never turns off. At level twelve, that's six additional stats and +30% experience from specialization alone. At level twenty, ten stats and +50%. Expert Insight can add another four stats, and with Tactics, eight. "Civil Innovations" can speed up law point gain by 30%, and with Leadership, by 60%. All of this works regardless of army composition, magic school, and which stack turned out to be the main one.

Faleor looks stronger. Vatavna breaks the map more interestingly. Ryzhekhvostka can assemble more terrifying fauns.

But when I don't know what the game will bring, I take Aunt Dalear.

Because Fireball eventually stops deciding fights. Fauns eventually have to be replaced. An adventure spell eventually turns out not to be the one needed.

And extra stats and accelerated leveling never become bad.