What’s a team to beat it that doesn’t cost $1000 worth of bought heroes?

A lot of those have their uses in prophecy pool, and even sky fortress in a pinch. Yes, and when you finish prophecy pool and sky fortress, you won't use them ever again since both prophecy pool and sky fortress aren't repeatable such as HoL, CoF or Arenas. So you’d rather get rid of the heroes tha...

A lot of those have their uses in prophecy pool, and even sky fortress in a pinch.

Valan is great when awakened, especially with the skin. Cara is good with awakening. Vulko is still a beast, especially now that you can buy his stones. Alecia can be useful. Mirelle is a must against enemy Valan, and very useful in sky fortress. Glacia is very useful in raids and HoL. Adeline has g...

Okay so to abandon a quest; go to Quests (above dailies in the side menu), your current awakening quest should be at the top, then tap on Quit. It might ask you if you're sure you wish to quit, tap Yes/Ok. When you restart it; a page will appear laying out both stages of the awakening. On the left ...

Haven’t noticed an issue, on normal CoF she gets her full super back every round

There’s a video of a guy doing Drago with aqua man & Lana and killing Drago at 200million damage

Driller is pretty good, Zem is for some things when awakened, but Valan > all of those and is free.

Nope

If you don’t have any I would definitely say Valan. It’s really useful for survivability, and he’s easy to 7 Star since you can buy his stones in a shop and farm a heroic stage.