Heroes

Rarity: SR / SSR / UR

Every hero has a rarity that sets their overall ceiling. SR heroes are the most accessible and serve as early-game filler. SSR heroes are stronger and form the backbone of most mid-game teams. UR heroes are the strongest and hardest to acquire, typically through events, Tavern shards, or Mall purchases.

Classes & the Counter Triangle

Every hero belongs to one of three classes, each tied to a troop type: Tank, Aircraft, and Missile Vehicle. Classes counter each other in a rock-paper-scissors triangle — the counter takes 20% less damage from the class it counters:

Squad Formation Bonus

Squads hold 5 heroes, 2 front row and 3 back row. Running all 5 heroes of the same class grants a same-type synergy bonus to HP, attack, and defense — because the bonus applies across multiple stats at once, a same-type squad ends up roughly 40-45% stronger overall than the same heroes in a mixed squad, even though each individual stat bonus looks smaller on its own. Mixed squads sacrifice this bonus in exchange for flexible counter-picking.

Getting a 2nd, 3rd & 4th Squad

Each squad you can build and gear separately has its own entry in your building list — 1st Squad, 2nd Squad, 3rd Squad, and 4th Squad — and each one is unlocked differently:

4th Squad's research itself is a permanent unlock and stays even if the pass isn't renewed — only other temporary pass perks (like a bonus marching queue) expire after the pass's 30 days end. 2nd and 3rd Squad are also significantly slower and more expensive to level up than 1st and 4th, so a common strategy is to max out 1st and 4th Squad first for two strong lineups, then circle back to 2nd and 3rd later rather than spreading resources evenly across all four from the start.

Roles & Placement

Independent of class, each hero also has a combat role that determines where they belong in formation:

• Defense — absorbs damage, placed in the front row (2 slots). Needs Armor and Radar gear.
• Attack — deals the team's main damage, placed in the back row (3 slots). Needs Cannon and Chip gear.
• Support — buffs allies or debuffs enemies, also placed in the back row.

Leveling, Star Tiers & Shards

Hero EXP raises a hero's level, boosting base stats (attack, HP, defense, troop capacity) — but the level cap is tied to your Headquarters level, exactly 5 levels per HQ level (see Upgrade Costs & Scaling for the full table). Separately, Star Tier upgrades (up to 5 stars) use Hero Shards and give a much bigger jump: each star significantly boosts every skill, which is why a hero only becomes truly effective around 3 stars. Reaching 5 stars promotes a hero to the Wall of Honor and is required before an Exclusive Weapon can be unlocked. Shards come as hero-specific shards or rarity-wide Universal Shards (Rare Universal for SR, Epic Universal for SSR, Universal Legendary for UR), earned from Tavern recruitment, the Alliance Store, or Mall purchases.

Skill Structure

Every hero has up to 4 skills that unlock progressively as their Star Tier rises:

Each skill can be leveled up to 30 using Skill Medals (the main source is the Arms Race event), which rises to 40 once a hero's Exclusive Weapon is unlocked. Upgrade priority depends on role: Defense heroes should prioritize Tactical and Passive skills over Auto-Attack; Attack heroes should prioritize whatever hits hardest; Support heroes should prioritize their ally-buffing skill over personal damage.

Exclusive Weapons

Exclusive Weapons are limited to UR-rarity heroes. Each season introduces 3 new ones — one per class — releasing in weeks 1, 3, and 6 of the season. Unlocking one requires the hero to already be at 5 stars, plus 50 named Exclusive Weapon Shards for that specific hero (Universal Exclusive Weapon Shards can then be used for further upgrades). Unlocking gives a squad power boost, with further boosts at levels 10, 20, and 30 — leveling one to 20 costs 1,130 total shards and is the commonly recommended first target. Beyond raw power, an Exclusive Weapon upgrades the hero's signature skill, raises their skill level cap from 30 to 40, and changes their vehicle model and hero avatar.

Hero Awakening

Introduced in Season 6, Awakening is a further upgrade layer on top of Exclusive Weapons. It requires a hero to be at 5 stars and have their Exclusive Weapon at level 20 or above — this second requirement is easy to miss, since being at Exclusive Weapon level 18-19 blocks Awakening entirely even with every shard in hand. Awakening replaces the hero's Expertise Skill with a new Awakening Skill, adds a significant HP/Attack/Defense boost, and gives them a new visual appearance. So far, Awakening exists only for Kimberly (Week 1), DVA (Week 3), and Tesla (Week 5) — Season 6 also paused new Exclusive Weapons and SSR-to-UR promotions while Awakening was introduced.

Awakening has 5 further star tiers of its own. The unlock itself costs 50 named Awakening Shards; Star 1 costs 130 shards cumulative, Star 2 costs a further 200 — costs for Stars 3 through 5 aren't publicly documented anywhere yet. Shards come from three sources: the Awakening Battle Pass (paid, 70 named shards, enough to cover the unlock plus Star 1), Global Expedition (free, opens Weeks 2, 4, and 6), and the Hero Awakening Trial (free, up to 10 named shards total). Kimberly's Awakening skill, "Priceless Resolve," is the only one of the three with publicly documented mechanics so far: it fires 10 barrages at 140.04% Attack as Energy Damage, gaining 3 extra barrages per Energy Amplification stack she holds (capped at 25 total barrages), reaching up to 3,501% Attack in total damage at maximum stacks.

SSR → UR Promotion

A small set of SSR heroes can be promoted to UR rarity once specific season-gated requirements are met — one new hero has become eligible each season so far, in a clean sequential pattern:

• Mason — Season 1: The Crimson Plague
• Violet — Season 2: Polar Storm
• Scarlett — Season 3: Golden Kingdom
• Sarah — Season 4: Evernight Isle
• Venom — Season 5: Wild West
• Braz — Season 6: Shadow Rainforest

Braz's promotion window opens Week 3 of Season 6 and stays open for the rest of the season, requiring a UR Hero Badge earned from the Season Goals reward track at 500,000 total War Merit — the same badge-based gate as earlier seasons, just tied to a different milestone currency.

Three things all have to be true to promote a hero: they must be at 5 stars (975 cumulative shards to get there from scratch), the promotion window must be open for their specific season (typically Week 3 to Week 7), and you need that season's UR Hero Badge — a season-specific currency earned by hitting a specific milestone (for example, Venom's badge came from a 500K CrystalGold goal in Season 5). A hero's star tier does not reset to 0 on promotion — following a Season 1 update, a 5-star SSR becomes a 3-star UR instead, with further progression from 3 to 5 stars costing roughly double the normal SSR star cost — Mason's promotion specifically is cited at 1,950 shards, double the standard 975. Some older guides still describe this as a full reset to 0 stars; that's now outdated. Skill medals and SSR shards spent star-leveling before promotion aren't wasted — they're refunded or converted to UR-equivalent as part of the process, and equipped gear stays equipped.

A timing tactic worth knowing: since shards spent on Wall of Honor for that hero are refunded (not lost) when they promote, it's worth maxing out Wall of Honor investment on a VS Hero Day first — the spending itself earns VS event points — then promoting afterward to get those shards back and reinvest them into the hero's now-larger UR Wall of Honor capacity, rather than promoting immediately and missing both benefits.

What Affects a Hero's Stats

A hero's final Attack, HP, Defense, and March Size are never just one number — each is built up from a whole stack of separate boosts, pulled from sources across the game (HQ level, Drone, Gear, Tech research, and more). You can see this full breakdown for any hero yourself in-game by tapping the small "i" (info) icon in the top-right corner of that hero's detail screen. The list below shows every contributing category found there for Kimberly, a Tank hero; Aircraft and Missile Vehicle heroes almost certainly have the equivalent categories.