If I remember correctly that strange rock is the start of advanced jewelcrafting items. Think you do actually get the rock in your crafting materials, and can collect more now to make better jewels yourself.
Option 2: If the Heroes are only human, it would make sense they cannot reset level whenever they want. The powerful Gods on the other hand, they reset levels just for the fun of it, even if there is no bonus!
The game is still being developed so I would hope the Hero level grind is something that will not be a problem if we get more ballads with stronger enemy that give more experience. As of now the "Eternal Melee" in coliseum seems best way to level up Heroes, it gives experience to every class so reset any that you can before.
@Barmaleus there may be a few reasons for this. There is a setting to adjust offline loading time, maximum is 24 hours. Make sure the game is not paused, and that you can farm the zone you are in without dying until autosave. If you are doing that, try testing out different zones to see which one can provide best XPS to increase idle gains. Hope this helps.
I recall a math teacher saying "Friends don't let friends divide by 0" which seems like the situation here, so let 1 or 2 seconds of the battle go on before destroying the enemy.
Aphrodite/Zeus gives instant attack from both heroes. Hades/Poseidon for instant triple hit. Gear is anything that gives points into attack and luck, slotted with all attack boosts. With game paused I reset all gods to level 1 and started the trial of skill, cast my duo abilities and realized I forgot to unpause the game when their health sat at zero instead of resetting for another round.
WARNING! DO NOT BE TOO POWERFUL!
I have manged to 1 shot some gods using duo abilities with game paused at start of round. It provided "Infinity DPS" which allowed 3 second farming with time fragments, but reset to 0 DPS when loading offline time.
That oak is a big jump in difficulty. There is a paralyzing toxin that gives a chance to stun every auto attack, also use lots of healing items and damaging items if it a close battle.
I think Aphrodite is gained from completing the trials of resolve up to certain point. The Beliggerent Oak is the one the keeps healing its roots if I remember correctly, have to kill the Oak before the Roots or it will keep healing.
Any Class with Ares - Zeus, the combo puts massive damage from Zeus abilities and repeats with DoT. Using a 2 set of Ares and the Blazing Sun pendent and help increase DoT ticks. Zeus Bolts and the Rainbow-Scale Plating cant help increase lightning damage. Slotted mostly attack gems with couple luck gems for attack, put some defense or health if having trouble staying alive long enough to nuke the enemy. Monk with Aphrodite - Dionysus combo for buff/debuff and heal/shields, use duo ability to stay alive. Use full Aphrodite to get rhythm buffs on partner attacks/abilities more often. Slot with enough resistance gems can cast a max shield every time, once again health or defense gems for survival. This build was able to 1 shot the fish, wish I shared it yesterday but was still testing it out.
I managed to beat the very hard Raindbow-Scaled fish using the build theruski suggested, the reflected damage is only for auto attacks so the DoT build good way to avoid that. I actually prefer the resistance and HP stat boosts to help get bigger shields, which helps keeping heroes alive. Also I had gods up to about level 3000.
@Tombex all golden apples are from 'Fertile Fields' and only apple thieves in that location drop them. Also good combo suggestion, if you use zeus + hades on single target fights it can stack the follow up hits if you 1 shot them