Short answer: In Last Asylum: Plague, buy Gear Blueprints from the honor shop (not curio chests), star Marlena before Arthur, upgrade Smelting Workshop early, forge weapons/gloves first, and save skill stones for your main carry.
Most Last Asylum: Plague accounts do not fail because the player stopped logging in. They fail because the first 30–60 days quietly burn currency on the wrong shop tabs, the wrong heroes, and the wrong gear slots — and by the time you notice, those resources are gone forever.
After seven months of play, one veteran player looked back and named five regrets that cost real progression. None of them require whale spending to fix. All of them are decisions you make in week one. If you are still setting up your base, read the first 24 hours guide first, then use this list as a hard “do not” checklist.
Regret #1: Buying Curio Chests Instead of Gear Blueprints
Honor Coins (sometimes called Honor Tokens in the shop UI) feel like bonus currency — easy to spend on whatever looks shiny. The trap is the Gear Curio Chest and UR Hero Universal Shards. Both look like premium value. Both are wrong for new accounts.
What to buy instead: Gear Blueprints, every time, until your core carry is properly forged.
Blueprints feed the gear pipeline that actually moves combat power: craft → upgrade → promote. Curio chests gamble on side-system power that barely matters early. Universal UR shards spread investment across random heroes instead of pushing one carry to red stars.
| Honor Shop Item | New Player Verdict |
|---|---|
| Gear Blueprints | ✅ Always buy |
| Gear Curio Chest | ❌ Skip entirely |
| UR Hero Universal Shards | ❌ Skip — focus shards on one named hero |
This pairs directly with the gear section in fastest way to increase power: real battle strength comes from forged equipment on your main squad, not lottery boxes. Save honor currency like you save speed-ups — for guaranteed progression, not RNG.
Regret #2: Wasting UR Shards on Arthur (and Over-Investing Warriors)
The second regret is splitting UR shards across the wrong heroes — specifically dumping them into Arthur when Marlena should eat nearly all of your early universal investment.
Marlena is the Warrior faction carry that carries PvE for the first 30–60 days. Push her toward 10 red stars before you star-up secondary warriors. Arthur can function at lower investment; Marlena at max stars is the difference between clearing campaign stages and hitting a wall.
That leads to the bigger squad mistake: building a full Warrior roster when you plan to spend at a medium level.
Warrior heroes are fine for F2P starters who get Marlena from the $1 pack, but medium spenders who want to stay competitive should pivot to Ranger squads early:
- Shadow — frontline control and physical pressure
- Zoya — multi-target Energy DPS
- Marlena — still worth starring if she is your early carry, but Rangers scale harder in PvP meta
- Harper and Daskal — support and tank layers for the full five-hero lineup
If you are going Ranger, do not spread UR shards across every Warrior you pulled on day three. Star your Ranger core, link the Ranger Statue when your base allows it, and treat Warriors as a transition squad — Marlena excepted. See how to level up heroes for the damage → tank → support order that applies to every faction.
Regret #3: Ignoring the Smelting Workshop Until Too Late
Gear is not only about blueprints and the Gear Workshop. The Smelting Workshop gates how fast you refine and upgrade metal gear pieces. Waiting until mid-game to care about it means your carry runs under-geared through the exact window where gear power spikes hardest.
Target: push Smelting Workshop to Level 25 as soon as your Sanctuary allows, then keep forging on your main DPS.
Smelting sits in the same building chain as resource production — easy to deprioritize behind Sanctuary and Research Lab upgrades. Do not make that mistake. A Level 25 smelter unlocks the upgrade throughput you need to keep swords and gloves on pace with hero levels. Check upgrade costs on the smelting workshop calculator before you commit speed-ups so you do not stall one level short.
Regret #4: Upgrading the Wrong Gear Slots (and Wasting Stones on Purple)
Gear stones are finite. Purple gear feels like a cheap power bump. Both assumptions waste months of Black Ops and event rewards.
Slot priority by role
| Role | Upgrade first | Skip or delay |
|---|---|---|
| DPS / carries | Sword, gloves, boots | Chest plate (low return on damage dealers) |
| Tanks | Chest plate, boots | Sword (never on pure tanks), gloves (usually) |
The logic is simple: DPS heroes win fights with attack stats — sword and gloves raise damage; boots add survivability without stealing budget from offense. Tanks absorb hits — chest and boots raise effective HP; putting stones into a tank’s sword is visible power with almost zero combat return.
Some hybrid tanks can use gloves. That is the exception, not the default rule.
Purple gear trap
Purple equipment is a stepping stone, not a destination. Spending premium gear stones to max purple pieces before you have orange forged gear on your carry is one of the fastest ways to stall. Forge orange on your main DPS first, promote through the Gear Workshop pipeline, and only backfill purple on secondary formation heroes if you are chasing visible might for PvP deterrence — not as your primary combat investment.
Regret #5: Upgrading the Wrong Hero Skills
Skill stones follow the same concentration rule as UR shards: one or two UR carries first, everyone else later.
Where skill stones should go
- Your main UR DPS — for Warriors, Marlena’s damage passive (Energy amplification) before random actives; for Rangers, Zoya’s crit and AoE kit after you confirm she is your carry
- Your second carry — only after the primary’s core passive is online
- Tank utility skills — team protection (Arthur’s ultimate-style shields), not attack skills on tanks
Upgrading attack skills on tanks feels productive because the number goes up. It does not change outcomes — tanks win by staying alive and buffing the squad, not by swinging harder.
The only purple exceptions
Two purple heroes are worth limited skill investment for World Boss farming:
- Ash — skill focus increases damage dealt to world bosses
- Cecilia — boosts extra resources from world boss kills
Everything else purple: leave it. Pour skill badges into UR heroes you will still use at Sanctuary 30.
This mirrors the priority ladder in how to level up heroes: carries → tanks (defensive skills) → support last.
The Corrected Early-Game Priority List
If you want the inverse of these five regrets — the actual order to follow — run this checklist from login one:
- Honor shop: gear blueprints only; no curio chests, no universal UR shards
- UR shards: Marlena to red stars first; pivot Ranger core (Shadow, Zoya, Harper, Daskal) if you spend past F2P
- Buildings: Smelting Workshop → 25, Gear Workshop on track for promote unlocks — see building calculators for costs
- Gear stones: orange on carry sword + gloves; tank chest + boots; ignore purple maxing
- Skill stones: UR carry passives → second DPS → tank defense skills; skip tank attack upgrades
Stack that on top of Sanctuary and research roadmap basics and you avoid the slow bleed that catches most seven-month accounts looking back in frustration.
Final Take
None of these regrets require perfect knowledge on day one. They require one rule: concentrate scarce currencies on your main carry’s gear, stars, and skills before you decorate the rest of the roster.
The players who pull ahead in the first two months are not luckier — they just never bought a curio chest with honor coins, never maxed Arthur before Marlena, and never put gear stones into a tank’s sword. You can skip all five regrets starting today.
Related Guides
- First 24 Hours Guide — base setup before you spend honor coins or shards
- How to Level Up Heroes — role-based leveling, gear, and skill order
- Fastest Way to Increase Power — where gear and heroes sit in the full power stack
- Marlena hero guide · Zoya hero guide