Introduction

Arena of Kings is a 3v3 arena brawler released by Villain Studios in December 2021, and as it goes with many new games, there’s a lot of new information to take in.

In this guide we are gonna go over everything there is to know about Arena of Kings for new players.

From choosing among classes, stat and item priorities, optimal keybinds and more.

Lets dive in.

Choosing a Class

In Arena of Kings there’s 10 different classes, sorted in 3 archetypes (Melee, ranged and healer)

Melee

• Champion
• Assassin
• Paladin (Can also be played as healer)

Ranged

• Lich
• Nihilist (Can also be played as healer)
• Wizard
• Ranger

Healers

• Scholar
• Mystic
• Elder

Without going too much into each class, we’re gonna sort them into playstyles so you get an idea of how each one works, and which one might suit your style.

Class guides for Assassin, Wizard, Nihilist and Ranger can be found here.

Fast Reactions

Although most classes require fast reactions, there are a few that shine if you’re the type of player who always looks to outplay the opponent by sheer mechanical skill.

Assassin is a melee rogue-like damage dealer. It has a lot of abilities that are highly dependent on how you well time them in reaction to what’s incoming. Avoiding important damage spells or CC, kicking spells that are cast in a 0.5s window, are just some of the challenges you can expect when trying to play the assassin versus other PvP-crazed freaks.

Ranger has some of the same features. This class has the option to go for many interrupts and CC abilities, and to get the most out of them you’re gonna want to be extra fast on your timings.

Elder is a druidic healer with many swift plays. Some of those include bearcharging an enemy to interrupt a heal and pre-using bearform to avoid incoming damage, all the while trying to keep your teammates up.

Mystic is another solid healer. Again, your teammates will rely on you to be fast at using shields and damage reduction spells on them.

Raw Damage

Are you the type of player who just loves to see big numbers? (Hint: All of us). Well, then these classes might be for you.

Wizard has very high burst, and underwhelmingly little damage when not actively casting. Don’t worry though, it’s all about setting up for the big numbers.

Lich is excellent at overwhelming enemies with DOT (Damage-over-time) spells, providing a lot of damage, and usually ending out at the top of the scoreboard when the match ends.

The Front Man

Yes, you guessed it. Classes for those of us that like to GO IN, and give their teammates awesome space in the process.

Champion is a warrior-like melee damage dealer. This class is great at giving his team space on the battlefield. So if you’re an aggressive style player who likes to rush in and smack the enemy healer, then this one is for you.

Paladin. A plate-wearing, slow, and hard-hitting class. This class has less mobility than the Champion, but the damage he does when he connects to a target makes up for that.

Teamplay

Perhaps you’re the type of player who always has a second opinion on how your teammate should play, or perhaps you just have a naturally good overview of everything. These classes are for you.

Scholar is another healer. Lots of friendly AOE heals and spells that provide teammates with utility, damage reduction, and other good things.

Nihilist has a lot of useful spells, both defensive and offensive, that can turn out to be very powerful when coordinated in precision with your teammates. If done well, the Nihilist can be a great catalyst for any team.

To understand how each class competes in the current state of the game, you can check out our Tier List here

Stats & Items

In AOK you have items, and those items have stats. Every class has different stat priorities.

Armor types

Cloth (Casters and healers, low armor value)

Leather (DPS mostly, some healers, medium armor value)

Plate (Frontline classes, high armor value)

Beyond those, there are weapon and ring, neck and trinket slots. Weapon-types are class locked, and trinkets are for LVL 20 characters only.

Each item has a rarity and can be one of the following rarities:

White

Blue

Purple

Orange

With Orange (Legendary) being the best. However, you can still get blue or purple items with very good stats if you get lucky. The stats that are generated on each item is random, and although Orange has the highest chance of giving you the best stats, it’s not always the case.

Stat Overview

The stats you generate on an item depend on the class and its level you have selected or play the moment you open a loot satchel.

Tips for stats and items

• Choose your main class and highest level class from the drop-down menu when opening loot satchels. This will make the items generated higher level and possibly higher value. Keep in mind that this might not be the best thing to do if you’re trying to gear up an alt, as it will likely be too low level to equip any of the gear you find.
• Save and equip items with high item rarity chance when doing casual games. This increases your chances of finding good loot while playing for fun. Go back to your main gear when doing ranked.
• Power is a priority for almost every class. A level 1 legendary weapon might give you really amazing substats, but if you’re losing out on a lot of power, then it may not be worth it.

Keybinds, movement & UI

In Arena of Kings, you can customize your UI, keybinds and movement.

And in a game where every little advantage counts, there are ways to optimize these settings to better suit the flow of the game.

Abilities

There’s BASIC (Auto-attack) and 8 abilities on your bar.

Ontop of that you have MEDITATE and TRINKET.

It’s important to be able to press each ability fast, so this means less distance for your finger to travel on the keyboard.

One optimized example for these is seen in the above image.

If you’re a WASD user, then any button close to W, A, S or D can be a good choice for your MAIN spells. You can prioritize spells that you’ll be pressing alot.

For this purpose the closest keys to WASD are good choices: 1, 2, 3, Q, E, R, F, V, C, X

Keep in mind that, by taking away a finger from one of the WASD keys, you’re gonna limit your movement when having to press that spell.

Movement & Targeting

In AOK, you can choose to either use Mouse or WASD to move.

If you choose to use Mouse, you’ll have a lot of free keys for spells, but you’re also gonna rely on targetting via keybinds instead of your cursor, because your cursor is going to be busy moving your character in a direction. This means having more buttons to press during the game.

If you’re going with WASD, you’re gonna have scenarios where you might limit your movement to press certain spells. Even with WASD, you can still go for targetting keybinds, but that means having A LOT of keybinds to press.

Movement choice comes down to your preference, but in our opinion, using Mouse with targetting binds might be the most optimal way to do it.

By doing it this way, you minimize risk of miss-clicking targets and you have a better flow of movement while pressing your spells.

Target binds can be anything from MOUSEWHEEL UP, MIDDLE, DOWN to SHIFT 1-2-3. Everyones keyboard and mouse are different, so this is entirely up to you. Just keep in mind you want to have easy access to those binds aswell.

UI

As of right now, AOK only has limited options in the ingame settings tab.

There’s a community-made site over at https://www.aok.gg/options that lets you customize many other things than just the ones you see ingame.

This allows you to change party and enemy frame location on your screen, target indicators above the enemy character, and more useful stuff.

Test out the settings and see what works best for you.