Dungeon Shard and Experience Farming

For those of us who choose not to spend money on the game, it is essential for us to farm shards or be left to the whims of whatever free gem rolls we can get.  Personally, those whims have under-delivered so I've been farming pretty religiously to acquire a Druid.  Still 24 away as of this writing, but obviously it's only a matter of time.

Right now for shard farming, I go to Dungeon 2 Skull 1 for a chance at 4 shards.  I lead with my level 73 Angel who can patiently wipe out one of the wizard army camps by herself.  This eliminates the delay that often comes with getting to the walls and Arrow Towers which can kill your heroes.  Once, the Angel wipes out the wizard and is attacking the camp structure, I release my other 4 primary heroes (Champion 76, Executioner 81, Serpent Queen 78, and Pain-Da 78).  I also have a Cyclops 73 that I can rotate as needed.  With this strategy I never lose a hero.

If it is my last dungeon chance, I sometimes go to Dungeon 3 Skull 1 and launch everyone with 52 Griffins to help.  The chance for 7 shards is worth it for me.  I always seem to have more mana to buy Griffins than I know what to do with.

For experience farming when I get a new hero worth keeping, I usually just send 1 high level hero through most of Dungeon 1 then launch the new guy so they split about 250 experience.  That makes it really easy to get past 20 relatively quickly.  I haven't done this in a while so maybe I can do it on Dungeon 1 Skull 2 instead.  Definitely let me know if you have a better path to levelling.  Alway willing to listen to new ideas.