Heroes are arguably the most crucial aspect of improving your performance in Puzzles & Survival. From providing massive boosts to your troops’ stats to making your sanctuary’s economy more efficient, heroes stand at the forefront of your forces.
Be sure to visit our ➡️Puzzles & Survival Master Guide⬅️ to find everything you need to know to succeed in this game.
Today, we’ll be going over the best heroes for each category and activity in the game, so you can plan out the best investment of your precious supply of Antiserum and Books. We’ll also cover more fundamental basics for newer players, so if you’re already familiar with the game, feel free to skip ahead past the first few sections.
With all that in mind, let’s get started!
How Heroes Work in Puzzles & Survival
Heroes have three main roles in Puzzles & Survival:
- Lead troops into battle and provide stat boosts to those troops. These consist of your Fighters, Shooters, Riders, and Vehicles.
- Provide passive bonuses to your sanctuary’s economy, such as reducing resource costs, shortening activity times, and increasing your rally/troop limits.
- Fight zombies and other players’ teams in Puzzle Battles with their unique skills and effects.
Heroes are sorted by rarity, ranging from 2- to 5-stars (though there is a 6-star rarity that we’ll discuss more later on). Higher-rarity Heroes have higher level caps and more skills, but are proportionately harder to unlock.
You’ll need a set number of fragments of each Hero in order to unlock them. You can earn these fragments either through recruiting at the Tavern, earning them through events, or converting Hero Choice Cards (and similar items) from your inventory into specific hero fragments.
While 5-stars make up the backbone of your army of your army at higher levels, it’s important to invest in your lower-star characters, too. Their skill effects can be incredibly useful, and some challenges limit you to using only certain color heroes.
If you’re ever unsure if a skill requires having the Hero in a march or not to be active, you can tap on it from the Hero tab to learn more.
How to Level Up & Evolve Heroes
You can level up Heroes to boost their stats and unlock new abilities. To level them up, you’ll have to spend Antiserum. This substance can be earned from most activities in the game, but your main source will be from beating Zombie Lairs in the open world map. Killing individual zombies is also a viable source, but you get less rewards per point of stamina spent.
At certain level thresholds, you’ll have to evolve your Hero to increase their max level. This is done with a chunk of Antiserum and Combat Manual books that you earn from the Campaign. You’ll earn higher-tier books as you progress through the campaign. If you hit a wall and are struggling to progress, just keep running the previous stage to get the best books available until you can continue again.
Also, if you’re wondering why some heroes have Hot on their portrait? It only means they’re on sale in the cash shop, nothing more.
How to Enhance Heroes
After you unlock a Hero, you can continue to use their fragments to enhance them. If you go to the hero menu, you’ll notice a + symbol in the top left corner of each hero’s portrait. This indicates their enhancement level. Each time you enhance a hero, their stats and Troop Skills’ effectiveness will increase.
The number of fragments needed to enhance ramps up exponentially each time. The rarity of your Hero also determines how high you can enhance and level them up to, as shown in the chart just below.
| Rarity | Max Level | Max Enhancement |
|---|---|---|
| 2-Star | 70 | +5 |
| 3-Star | 130 | +5 |
| 4-Star | 210 | +5 |
| 5-Star | 400 | +8 |
| 6-Star | 400 | +8 |
Once you reach max enhancement level for a Hero, you can sell off any excess fragments of them. To do so, do the following:
- Go to the Hero tab
- Tap on Bag at the top of the screen
- Recycle any hero fragments you want to (a message will appear over the recycle button if that hero is already maxed out on their enhancement level)
You can then take the points you earn from recycling the fragments to exchange for specific hero fragments in Noah’s Tavern. Just note the selection is somewhat limited and the costs are a bit high.
How to Upgrade to 6-Star Rarity
You may have noticed that some players have heroes with a big red star. This means they’ve been upgraded to 6-star rarity.
This is a feature limited to only 5-star Heroes. Once your 5-star Hero reaches Level 310 and has been enhanced to at least +5, you can evolve the hero into 6-star rarity. This requires a large chunk of Antiserum and Combat Manual books that you can only obtain from the second run-through of the campaign (which you’ll unlock after you beat the entirety of it once).
If you meet all the requirements, tap on the Hero and click the large up arrow button next to their star rarity to promote them. If not, you’ll be able to see what you’re missing.
This rarity boost further increases your hero’s stats and unlocks a new Hero skill for them in puzzle battles. There are currently four types of passive 6-star skills that enhance your hero’s role.
- Combat Arts: Increases Crit Rate by 30%. All Heroes have a natural chance to get a critical hit and deal anywhere between 1.5 to 2.5 times more damage. This just further boosts the chance.
- Iron Will: Increases Crit Res by 30%. Basically the opposite of Combat Arts. Decreases the chance an incoming attack will be a critical hit. Perfect, since it’s normally found on Healers.
- Unbending: Increases Block Rate by 30%. Heroes have an innate chance to block an attack, either reducing the incoming damage to 0 or mitigating some of it. This skill increases the amount of damage blocked.
- Target Weakness: Increases Impale Rate by 30%. Basically the counterpart to Unbending. Reduces the amount of damage the enemy can block or render an attack completely unblockable.
How Much Should You Level A Hero in Puzzles & Survival?
Another important thing we want to cover is how high you should level your hero. At a certain point, it stops being practical/worthwhile to keep investing leveling resources into heroes of lower rarity when they could be spent on your 5-star heroes.
Note – this does not apply to enhancing them. You should always enhance a hero with additional fragments until they’re maxed out on their enhancement level.
For the most part, you’ll only want to level non 5-star heroes to the point where they unlock all their Troop Skills, as additional levels don’t boost their effectiveness in troop battles. Higher levels will only boost a hero’s performance in Puzzle Battles.
| Rarity | Level for All Troop Skills | Recommended Level |
|---|---|---|
| 2-Star | 31 | 31 |
| 3-Star | 71 | 71 |
| 4-Star | 131 | 210 |
| 5-Star | 131 | 350 |
Though with Puzzle Battles in mind, you may want to fully level up a handful of 4-star heroes for challenges where you’re limited to only certain hero colors. However, keep this as a second priority to maxing out your 5-star heroes, as they will almost always be more effective than an equally leveled 4-star hero.
How to Reset a Hero in Puzzles & Survival
Most players end up spending more resources than necessary on their low rarity heroes at the start of the game when their hero roster is sparse. Thankfully, you can reclaim those spent resources by hitting the reset button at the top right corner of a hero’s info panel (it looks like two rotating arrows).
It’ll cost you a small amount of diamonds (150) to do so, but it will reset that hero to level 1 and return all antiserum, Combat Manuals, and fragments you used on them. Then you can choose another better hero to invest those resources into.
Though we do strongly recommend re-investing resources in that reset hero to the point where they unlock all their Troop Skills and max out their enhancement level. Many low rarity heroes have incredibly useful Troop Skills that can drastically boost your economy or provide stat boosts to your troops in secondary teams.
Best Heroes in Puzzles & Survival by Category
Now that we’ve covered the basics, let’s break down the best Puzzles & Survival Heroes.
The following categories are showcasing fully enhanced heroes. Depending on the enhancement levels of your heroes, lower rarity heroes can outperform 5-star heroes in terms of boosting your troops’ stats.
You should always compare your heroes’ stat boost to your troops when deciding on who to send with your march. Once you decide on the best heroes, save the formation at your Hall of War to quickly deploy them with your troops.
Best Heroes for Fighters
| Hero | Rarity | Color | HP | DEF | ATK |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hanyu Ichiro* | 5-Star | Blue | — | +350% (Troop) | +350% |
| Dara* | 5-Star | Red | — | +350% (Troop) | +350% |
| Nataly* | 5-Star | Green | — | +350% (Troop) | +350% |
| Wali* | 5-Star | Purple | — | +350% (Troop) | +350% |
| Ulrik | 5-Star | Green | +250% | +250% | +250% |
| Zephyr | 5-Star | Blue | +250% | +250% | +250% |
| Seo-yun | 4-Star | Green | +50% | +50% | +50% |
| Sanguine | 4-Star | Blue | — | +50% | +50% |
| Noct | 3-Star | Blue | +25% | +25% | +25% |
| Barbie | 3-Star | Green | — | +25% | +25% |
| Queenie | 2-Star | Green | +10% | +10% |
These heroes must be deployed with the march to provide their benefits.
*Note that Hanyu Ichiro, Dara, Nataly, and Wali are considered hybrid Heroes and offer ATK boosts to Fighters and an additional troop type.
Best Heroes for Riders
| Hero | Rarity | Color | HP | DEF | ATK |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hanyu Ichiro* | 5-Star | Blue | — | +350% (Troop) | +350% |
| Angelo* | 5-Star | Green | — | +350% (Troop) | +350% |
| Lora & Jessie* | 5-Star | Yellow | — | +350% (Troop) | +350% |
| Wali* | 5-Star | Purple | — | +350% (Troop) | +350% |
| Fox | 5-Star | Blue | +250% | +250% | +250% |
| Obsidian | 5-Star | Green | +250% | +250% | +250% |
| Reyn | 4-Star | Red | +50% | +50% | +50% |
| Dom | 4-Star | Yellow | — | +50% | +50% |
| Percival | 3-Star | Yellow | +25% | +25% | +25% |
| Doc Gray | 3-Star | Purple | — | +25% | +25% |
| Maverick | 2-Star | Blue | — | +10% | +10% |
These heroes must be deployed with the march to provide their benefits.
*Note that Hanyu Ichiro, Angel, Lora & Jessie, and Wali are considered hybrid Heroes and offer ATK boosts to Riders and an additional troop type.
Best Heroes for Shooters
| Hero | Rarity | Color | HP | DEF | ATK |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Dara* | 5-Star | Red | — | +350% (Troop) | +350% |
| Angelo* | 5-Star | Green | — | +350% (Troop) | +350% |
| Nataly* | 5-Star | Green | — | +350% (Troop) | +350% |
| Lora & Jessie* | 5-Star | Yellow | — | +350% (Troop) | +350% |
| Ephraim | 5-Star | Blue | +250% | +250% | +250% |
| Phoenix | 5-Star | Red | +250% | +250% | +250% |
| Hartwell | 4-Star | Green | +50% | +50% | +50% |
| Griffin | 4-Star | Yellow | — | +50% | +50% |
| Malcolm | 3-Star | Yellow | +25% | +25% | +25% |
| Bard | 3-Star | Green | — | +25% | +25% |
| Amber | 2-Star | Red | — | +10% | +10% |
These heroes must be deployed with the march to provide their benefits.
*Note that Dara, Angelo, Nataly, and Lora & Jessie are considered hybrid Heroes and offer ATK boosts to Shooters and an additional troop type.
Best Heroes for All Troops
Some Heroes provide bonuses for all troop types (including Vehicles). However, these Heroes’ bonuses tend to be smaller compared to Heroes specializing in one type of troop. These heroes must be deployed with the march to provide their benefits.
You’ll usually use these to fill in gaps of your Hero formations when you lack a better specialized Hero. Remember, +50% to all troops is better than +20% to Shooters, even if you’re only running Shooters.
Additionally, they’re a good choice to put on your Sanctuary’s Wall defense duty, as they’ll bolster all your troops.
| Hero | Rarity | Color | HP | DEF | ATK |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Requiem | 5-Star | Red | +125% | +125% | +125% |
| Mars | 5-Star | Green | +125% | +125% | +125% |
| Marlowe | 5-Star | Purple | +125% | +125% | +125% |
| Meyers | 5-Star | Yellow | +125% | +125% | +125% |
| Tomoyo | 5-Star | Purple | +125% | +125% | +125% |
| Nam Hayul | 5-Star | Green | +125% | +125% | +125% |
| Devana | 4-Star | Red | +16% | +16% | +16% |
| Chae Seoyun | 4-Star | Blue | +16% | +16% | +16% |
Heroes with Passive Troop Bonuses
These heroes are unique in that they always provide combat bonuses to your troops, even if you don’t deploy them with your march. If you can obtain them, it’s effectively like having an extra Hero with your march in terms of stat boosts.
Naturally, they’re all rather difficult to obtain (minus 3-Star Marshall), as they only come from certain events. If you’re fortunate enough to obtain enough frags to recruit and enhance them, they’ll make a considerable difference in your troops’ strength.
| Hero | Rarity | Color | Passive Bonuses |
|---|---|---|---|
| Levina | 5-Star | Blue | +200% Fighter/Rider/Shooter ATK |
| Lee | 5-Star | Yellow | +150% Troop ATK |
| Chia-hao | 5-Star | Blue | +150% Troop DEF |
| Samuel | 5-Star | Green | +150% Troop HP |
| Atropos | 5-Star | Purple | +225% Troop HP/DEF/ATK in Sanctuary Battle |
| Lady M | 5-Star | Yellow | +150% Rally ATK |
| Marshall | 3-Star | Red | +30% Hunt ATK |
Best Heroes for Economy
This section isn’t so much a ranking, as you should aim to obtain all of these heroes as soon as possible. Their bonuses to your economy are always active, providing you value 24/7. However, we will note which ones you should prioritize.
| Hero | Rarity | Color | Passive One | Passive Two | Passive Three |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| McCarty | 5-Star | Red | +100% Training Speed | -28% Stamina Cost | -28% Training Cost |
| Ironclaw | 5-Star | Yellow | +100% Research Speed | +100% Training Speed | — |
| Eve | 5-Star | Purple | +100% Gathering Speed | +100% Healing Speed | — |
| Lee | 5-Star | Yellow | +20% Protected Resources | +100% Reinforcement March Speed | — |
| Scarlett | 5-Star | Red | +80 mins Free Speed-Up | +100% Build Speed | — |
| Agent X | 5-Star | Purple | +100% Gathering March Speed | -36% Healing Steel Cost | — |
| Chia-hao | 5-Star | Blue | +35% Infirmary Cap | -36% Healing Steel Cost | — |
| Samuel | 5-Star | Green | +20% Protected Resources | +300% Gas Output | — |
| Lady M | 5-Star | Yellow | +100% Gathering Speed | — | — |
| Mantis | 5-Star | Yellow | -50% Food Upkeep | +100% Healing Speed | +35% Infirmary Cap |
| Leah | 5-Star | Red | +100% Healing Speed | -36% Healing Gas Cost | — |
| Varvara | 4-Star | Purple | +15% Research Speed | +100% Antiserum Output | — |
| Otto | 4-Star | Blue | +30% Commander EXP | +20% Healing Speed | — |
| Dr. J | 4-Star | Purple | +15% Build Speed | +100% Gas Output | — |
| Dom | 4-Star | Yellow | +100% Steel Output | — | — |
| Griffin | 4-Star | Yellow | +100% Wood Output | — | — |
| Sanguine | 4-Star | Blue | +100% Food Output | — | — |
| Chester | 3-Star | Red | +500 Training Cap | -100,000 Research Steel Cost | -50,000 Research Gas Cost |
| Doc Gray | 3-Star | Purple | +30% Steel Gathering Speed | ||
| Marshall | 3-Star | Red | +30% Gas Gathering Speed | +30% Hunt March Speed | — |
| Anahita | 3-Star | Purple | +10 mins Free Speed-Up | -100,000 Build Steel Cost | -50,000 Build Gas Cost |
| Flint | 3-Star | Blue | +30% Gathering March Speed | +10% Gathering Speed | +30% Troop Load |
| Barbie | 3-Star | Green | +30% Food Gathering Speed | — | — |
| Bard | 3-Star | Green | +30% Wood Gathering Speed | — | — |
| Maverick | 2-Star | Blue | +10% Steel Output | — | — |
| Kento | 2-Star | Yellow | +10% Hunt March Speed | -100,000 Research Food Cost | -100,000 Research Wood Cost |
| Xavis | 2-Star | Purple | +10% Gas Output | — | — |
| Amber | 2-Star | Red | +10% Wood Output | — | — |
| Queenie | 2-Star | Green | +10% Food Output | — | — |
Prioritize the following heroes especially:
- McCarty: Relatively easy to obtain his fragments. Lower stamina costs go a long way to doing more hunts/rallies for additional rewards. Faster and cheaper troop training is always relevant.
- Eve: Another relatively easy 5-star to obtain. Faster gathering and healing goes a long way to having enough resources to do anything. Getting additional fragments is a bit trickier, as you have to hit certain progression milestones in the Ruins to obtain them. However, you should be able to make steady progress if you regularly play the game.
- Otto: Leveling up your Commander is a slow and daunting process. Otto provides the only boost to Commander EXP in the entire game. It’s a rather hefty 30% bonus at max enhancement, which is reachable due to him being a 4-star. If possible, save all your Commander EXP items until you have him maxed out.
Also note that all the 3-star and 2-star Heroes are incredibly simple to max out. While their boosts to your economy might not be extremely impressive, every little bit adds up.
Best Heroes for Troop Size
| Hero | Rarity | Color | Max Troop Boost |
|---|---|---|---|
| Leah | 5-Star | Red | +55,000 |
| Ironclaw | 5-Star | Yellow | +55,000 |
| Eve | 5-Star | Purple | +50,000 |
| Scarlett | 5-Star | Red | +30,000 |
| Lady M | 5-Star | Yellow | +25,000 |
| Varvara | 4-Star | Purple | +10,000 |
| Otto | 4-Star | Blue | +10,000 |
One of the best ways to increase your march strength is being able to deploy more troops. Naturally, Heroes that increase the troop cap on your marches are incredibly valuable.
These boosts are always active, and you do not need to send the Hero on the march to get the benefit.
Best Heroes for Rally Size
| Hero | Rarity | Color | Max Troop Boost |
|---|---|---|---|
| Agent X | 5-Star | Purple | +500,000 |
| Dr. J | 4-Star | Purple | +100,000 |
There are very few Heroes that boost your rally size. Thankfully, you don’t actually need that much of a boost, since most people don’t have high enough of a troop size limit to max out your rally cap (unless you’re in an alliance with a lot of really high level players).
However, it’s always nice to increase your limits just in case you ever reach the point where you need to host a lot of your allies (namely for Alliance Events like Speaker Trap). Just remember that upgrading your Hall of War is the main way to increase your rally size.
These boosts are always active, and you do not need to send the Hero on the march to get the benefit.
Where to Get A Specific Hero
While most of the Heroes’ fragments can be obtained by rolling the proverbial die and getting them from the Tavern, some of them can only be obtained through specific events or shops.
All 2-Star and 3-Star heroes can be obtained from any tier of recruitment at the Tavern. Flint (3-Star) can also be exchanged for in the Arena shop (Hero Survival Shop) and Chester (3-star) can drop from Level 1–9 zombies.
Nearly all 4-Star Heroes can be recruited from the Int./Adv. tier at the Tavern. Only Varvara isn’t included on the list, but you can get her from the Ruins Exchange Shop. Otto can also drop from Level 10–14 zombies.
5-Star heroes are where it gets tricky. Most of them are only obtainable through events. While you can technically get them without paying any money, it’s hard to rank high enough in the events to get a meaningful number of fragments.
You’ll either have to hoard supplies for months, be extremely strong, or spend copious amounts of cash to compete. If you’re taking the hoarding route, expect to largely skip out the first time a periodic event occurs. You’ll have to stockpile the currency/resources needed to get a meaningful rank and wait for the event to roll around again before spending them.
- Mars/Ulrik/Fox/Meyers/Marlowe: Adv. Tier of Tavern, Choice Cards, Cash Shop
- McCree: The Pit’s Rare Earth exchange shop, and the above sources.
- Scarlett: Cash Shop only
- Ephraim: Choice Cards, Strike First event (every 2 weeks Thursday – Saturday), Cash Shop
- Eve: Ruins exchange shop (1st Victory tab)
- Requiem: Level 15+ zombies, level 13+ zombie lairs, Choice Cards, Cash Shop
- Obsidian: Ace Commander event (every 2 weeks Monday – Sunday)
- Nam Hayul: Occasional holiday event (random timings), eventually Ace Commander
- Atropos: Occasional random event, eventually Ace Commander
- Leah: Break Loose events (every 2 weeks Friday – Sunday)
- Lee: Opening special Holiday event chests (random timings)
- Phoenix/Zephyr/Lady M: Obtained from Ace Hero II cards (periodic standalone events scattered throughout the week like Build & Research).
- Phoenix also has a one-time reward of 50 frags from clearing Ultimate Challenge level 200
- Samuel: Distress beacon events (approx. once a month)
- Ironclaw: Distress beacon events (approx. once a month), Cash Shop, Lucky Draw (every two weeks, Monday–Wednesday)
- Ironclaw also has a one-time reward of 20 frags from clearing Ultimate Challenge level 170
- Levina: Reservoir War exchange (every Friday), Lucky Draw (every 2 weeks Monday – Wednesday)
- Tomoyo/Agent X/Mantis/Chia-hao: Joy 777 Jackpot (every 2 weeks Wednesday – Friday), requires stockpiling 50 Joy Coins to guarantee jackpot.
- Angelo/Dara/Hanyu Ichiro: Lucky Wheel (every 2 weeks Tuesday – Thursday)
- Nataly: Wasteland King event (your state must be ranked in Gold Tier or higher to obtain her frags), convert two 5-star Hero Perfect Frags into one of hers.
- Lora & Jessie: Obtained from a high enough overall ranking of standalone events (like Nanoweapon , convert two 5-star Hero Perfect Frags into one of theirs.
- Wali: Obtained from a high enough overall ranking of Ace Commander, convert two 5-star Hero Perfect Frags into one of its.
Additionally, depending on how old your state (server) is, certain groups of heroes will not be available until a set amount of time has passed. If they’re not available through the events listed above, just wait a bit for them to be added as rewards. They will be released in the following order.
- Group 1: Angelo, Dara, and Hanyu Ichiro.
- Group 2: Nataly, Wali, and Lora & Jessie.
Best Heroes for PVE (Puzzle Battles)
Arguably the most important and iconic role of your Heroes is to handle the puzzle battles. Depending on the type of puzzle battle you’re doing, you’ll either want to churn out as much damage as possible within a couple turns or try to steadily whittle down the enemy while surviving.
You’ll typically want a mix of multiple colors in your team (ideally four or five) to take advantage of all the tiles. If you’re missing a Hero color, those corresponding tiles will do next to no damage and only serve to boost the enemy’s rage bar.
Due to the various team combinations you can make in this game, we’ll cover the best Heroes of each color depending on whether they’re damage dealer or bring utility to the team. We’re also basing our choices on the assumption that you’ve unlocked all of their skills.
Note: Allies and enemies can only be affected by one instance of a buff/debuff. For example, if you have two heroes that can provide an ATK buff, only one ATK buff can be active at a time (the stronger one). You can’t stack active ATK buffs. Similarly, you can’t stack active debuffs on an enemy and render them flimsy as paper.
Damage-Dealing
Red
Scarlett (5-Star): Single-target
Your first taste of power when you started this game. Scarlett is easily one of the best single-target heroes in the game. Boasting a high attack, a fast charging high-damage ability that also poisons the enemy, and being able to cripple an enemy’s rage generation, Scarlett is fantastic in every scenario.
The problem lies in obtaining her. You have to spend real money. She’s only available through the cash shop, so enhancing her is rather problematic unless you don’t mind spending money on this game regularly.
Phoenix (5-Star): Whole Team
The pyromaniac of the team is the epitome of someone who lives for fighting. With all of her skills geared towards making her even more of a threat as the fight goes on, Phoenix is great for evenly chewing through the entire enemy team’s health.
Her ability does a sizeable chunk of damage immediately and continues to burn the enemy team for the next five turns, after which they’ll explode for a huge chunk of damage. Making this even more potent and easier is that she boosts all Red heroes’ rage generation by 10% and increases her attack each round up to an extra 80%. Though you probably won’t need her to reach full power before the enemy dies.
Yellow
Ironclaw (5-Star): Adjacent Targets
This expy of Wolverine absolutely shreds his enemies to pieces. Whoever he targets and is adjacent to them will get hit by a huge chunk of damage and have their defense and healing effectively cut in half for four rounds.
Given that he has a very fast charge rate on his ability, he can probably hit them again before the defense debuff wears off, likely killing them in the process. Plus, he buffs himself and his adjacent allies’ defenses in the process, making your team even harder to kill.
Green
Mars (5-Star): Single-target
The man known for running down his target with a race car. With a strong single target ability that reduces the enemy’s rage bar by 25% and buffs the two allies next to him, Mars is an incredibly strong team player. Use him to delay a problematic enemy from using their ability (or just outright kill them) and to bolster your other damage dealers’ attack and incoming healing.
Obsidian (5-Star): Single-target
Similar to Mars, Obsidian is another strong single-target Hero that’s great at deleting threats off the board. What sets him apart is that he’s capable of stealing the enemy’s buffs for his own team, making him fantastic for dealing with defense-boosted enemies.
Additionally, if he manages to get the killing blow with his ability, he gets a massive boost to his crit chance for five rounds, setting off a domino effect of him murdering everything. Plus, he’s even effective against Red enemies, only doing 10% less damage than normal.
Blue
Ephraim (5-Star): Whole Team
Easily one of the best setup Heroes in the game, Ephraim renders enemies helpless while bombarding all of them with a copious amount of damage. All foes hit by his ability have their defense nearly halved and their attack reduced by a third for four turns. It even has a chance of stunning foes for two rounds, usually long enough to eliminate them or further stalling out an enemy’s ability.
Levina (5-Star): Single-target
An absolute nightmare for any enemy that relies on buffing and healing themselves. Levina’s ability does a tremendous amount of damage to its target, removes all enemies’ buffs, and steals any healing that would be applied to said target for three turns. Plus, she grants all Blue heroes a 10% crit chance for four turns whenever she uses her ability, making her even more lethal if you can charge her ability again in that time.
Purple
Marlowe (5-Star): Whole Team
The tentacled man is an incredibly reliable teammate who does solid damage and can render your enemy unable to hit you. His ability will slap all enemies with his tentacles and reduce their chance to hit your team by 40% for six rounds. This means you could effectively dodge all the enemies’ attacks if you’re lucky, including their abilities. Plus, it has a chance to stun enemies for two turns, too.
While his ability does have a slow charge rate, he automatically gains 30% rage at the start of each battle, making him fairly reliable. If you can activate his ability at least once, you’ll probably buy your team enough time with the reduced hit chance to charge it up again.
Agent X (5-Star): Single-target
A very unique hero with the ability to render a lot of difficult fights trivially easy. Her ability attaches a bomb to a target that explodes after 4 turns, dealing 99% of the target’s health as damage. Simply hit the target with any attack that does damage and it’ll keel over. If said target is hiding behind other enemies, you’ll probably have to use another hero’s ability to kill off said target.
The only things that can stop this death sentence is if the enemy can cleanse debuffs (getting rid of the bomb effect) or if they heal immediately after the bomb goes off. You don’t even necessarily need to have Agent X at a high level, though it certainly makes it easier for her to survive long enough to use her ability.
Do note that some enemies are immune to this ability, but that’s usually just in Trials where you’re competing to do as much damage in a set amount of turns. Additionally, Agent X is unable to generate rage for 4 turns after using her ability. However, Lady M can prevent this debuff from being applied to Agent X if you use Lady M’s ability first.
Survival and Support
Red
Leah (5-Star): Tank
While most Red heroes are about offense, Leah is the exception. Instead, this child is all about becoming immortal and going on an unstoppable rampage.
Her ability renders all incoming damage to 1 (except for counterattacks) and provides herself increased ATK and crit chance for four turns. However, she is unable to gain any more rage during this period and can not be affected by any other beneficial or harmful effects.
Try to time her ability before a massive incoming attack to become an unstoppable juggernaut of death. She should be able to kill her foe before her state wears off or at least deal a ton of damage before setting up to do it again.
Yellow
Meyers (5-Star): ATK Buffer & Enemy Buff Dispeller
A bit of a double-edged sword, Meyers is all about status effects. His ability grants his party a massive 80% ATK boost for five turns but also reduces their hit chance by 25%, meaning their attack could just miss entirely. Thankfully, you can negate this by activating Meyers’ ability first, then following up immediately with a Hero who can remove debuffs (like Fox).
Additionally, Meyers’ ability will reduce the enemies’ ATK by 20% for five rounds and dispel any buffs they might have, making him an incredibly effective set up hero for the rest of your team.
Lady M (5-Star): Healer & Debuffer
This rockstar is an amazing support hero. Her ability prevents the targeted enemy from gaining any rage for four turns, allowing you to smash them with tiles completely uninhibited. This is extremely good on Alliance Trial challenges if you pair her with a hero who can reduce the enemy’s rage bar. You could in theory extend the fight far past its intended duration and rack up a bunch of points.
Plus, her ability heals your team for a fifth of their health and prevents any negative effects for two rounds. So use her first before activating any heroes’ abilities that have a drawback (like Meyers or Agent X). She also grants all Yellow Heroes a bit of extra rage at the start of each round for six turns.
Green
Ulrik (5-Star): Tank
A bit of a strange Hero, Ulrik’s ability can be a bit confusing at first, but is completely beneficial. Using it causes damage to be split evenly across whichever side gets hit for four turns. If you would deal 500 damage to one enemy, it instead gets split into 100 damage across all five enemies. If one of your heroes would take 500 damage, everyone on your team would instead take 100 damage.
This makes it incredibly good at spreading out damage evenly and targeting enemies with lower DEF to do more damage overall. It also helps prevent one of your heroes from getting hit by a massive attack and killed instantly. Thankfully, his ability also bolsters your team’s DEF while lowering the enemies’ DEF, making his role even more effective. Also, despite his bulk, he has a decent chance to simply dodge enemy attacks like a ballerina.
Samuel (5-Star): Rage Generator
Do you like spamming your team’s abilities back to back? Perfect — throw Samuel into the team. Besides providing a permanent 10% ATK buff to your team 24/7, his ability does a good chunk of damage before fully restoring a random teammate’s rage bar.
Making it even better is that another random teammate will also get 10% of their rage bar restored each turn for three rounds. Should he go down, he helps out one last time by fully restoring another ally’s rage bar. This man is perpetually raging.
Blue
Fox (5-Star): Healer & Debuff Cleanse
Easily considered one of the best (if not the best) support Heroes in the game, Fox is invaluable in nearly every team composition. Her ability heals nearly half of the team’s health, removes all debuffs, and provides a 63% DEF buff for five turns.
Use her to either top off the team after a devastating blow and remove any lingering negative effects, or pre-emptively bolster the team’s defense to survive an incoming massive hit. Simple but staggeringly effective.
Zephyr (5-Star): Tank
The mystery man of the team is one of your best frontliners. Zephyr’s ability grants himself and two adjacent allies a counterattack ability to hit back even harder whenever they take damage.
What makes him such a great tank is that he takes 46% less damage from Green enemies and heals his team for 5% each round after using his ability. Plus, whenever he’s below 60% HP, he’ll take only half damage from everything (this can not be dispelled), giving you more than enough time to heal him up and outlast the enemy.
Purple
Eve (5-Star): Healer & Rage Generator
The other big healer besides Fox is geared more towards supporting offensive teams. Her ability heals her team for nearly half their health and grants them a 24% boost to their rage generation for six rounds. It has the added advantage of making it easier for her to activate another heal, too.
Eve is also deceptively sturdy for a healer. Besides the initial healing from her ability, she personally also regenerates 2% of her health each round for six turns and is very likely to revive herself once if she goes down in battle.
Best Heroes for PVP (Arena)
For the most part, you can use the same teams you use in PVE for PVP. This mostly consists of Arena, where you’re matched against another player’s AI controlled team. You’ll also have to set up a team to be controlled by the AI for when someone else challenges you.
In this defensive team, the position of your Heroes matters a lot more. This is because the center Hero is more likely to be hit often by tiles and thus takes more damage and generate rage faster. Placing the correct center Hero can make your enemy’s life a nightmare, as they can chain their abilities back to back.
With that in mind, we’ll be noting Heroes that particularly shine in that role, as well as listing off some of the best Heroes for PVP.
- Fox (Blue): It’s hard to convey just how powerful Fox is in PVP. Almost every team runs her, as she provides so much survivability to the team via her healing, debuff removal, and long lasting DEF boost.
She is a fantastic pick to put in the center of your defensive formation, as she has a rather high base DEF stat and can keep your team alive indefinitely if she constantly fills up her rage bar.
- Eve (Purple): The other super common healer. On her own, Eve is a bit lackluster in comparison to Fox, namely due to the lack of debuff removal. However, when paired with Fox, your team becomes a chain-healing hydra that just keeps popping up from the brink of death.
Especially frustrating for enemy players to deal with, since they often have to kill her twice due to her self-revive skill. However, that’s rather difficult to accomplish before either her or Fox manages to get a heal off again. Due to her slightly squishier DEF, we recommend putting her on the edges of your defensive team to avoid taking too much direct damage.
- Mantis (Yellow): If you want to make the other player foam at the mouth with rage, put Mantis in the center of your defensive team. With a solid DEF and a high HP, he’s already quite difficult to kill. Making this worse for your enemy is that Mantis’ ability charges incredibly quickly and drains up to three targets’ rage by 25% while dealing a decent chunk of damage.
It’s very likely that Mantis can keep deploying his ability so frequently that the enemy can’t even use an ability because they keep getting drained. Even better (for you), his ability cleanses his team’s debuffs and removes all of the enemy’s buffs (worse for them). Plus, he has a 50% chance of coming back from the dead once per battle and is immune to stuns/paralysis until this revival is triggered.
- Phoenix (Red): Phoenix once again touts all the advantages we mentioned above in the PVE section. What makes her so deadly in PVP is just how much upfront damage she does. Most teams can be wiped out with just two casts of her ability, and if they’re unable to cleanse the ticking Blast damage debuff, they’re all but guaranteed to die in five turns. Even more so if the battle has gone on long enough to fully stack her permanent ATK buff.
Though she is a fair bit on the squishier side with a low DEF, so we recommend putting her closer to the side of your defensive team. That way she can safely charge up her rage bar without getting instantly deleted from existence.
- Ironclaw (Yellow:) The man just tears through teams so quickly with his fast-charging ability. Whether it’s on your offensive or defensive team, you can use Ironclaw to cripple the targets’ DEF and prevent them from effectively healing up. He’s unlikely to die with a bit of support and if you can toss him an ATK buff, he’ll kill even faster.
Join the High Ground
And that’s it for our guide on the best Heroes in Puzzles & Survival. If you want us to cover another Hero or think someone else deserves to be on our list, let us know in the comments below! Don’t forget to subscribe to our newsletter for the latest tips, tricks, and guides on all things gaming related.
Good luck out there in the zombie-infested wasteland, Commanders!
