Puzzles & Survival Commander Guide

Commander Basics

Let’s talk about the Puzzles & Survival Commander: that’s you by the way.

We’ve already gone over how to change your name and appearance, so let’s go over Commander level and talents.

As you defeat zombies and lairs in the world, complete quests, and participate in events, you’ll periodically earn Commander EXP. Half the time the EXP is applied automatically. Otherwise the EXP will appear in your bag as an item. We recommend holding off using them until you obtain/enhance 4-star hero Otto for his boost to Commander EXP.

When you earn enough EXP and level up, you’ll obtain a couple talent points. If you tap on your profile, you’ll see ‘Talent’ down in the bottom left corner. In there, you’ll have access to three different talent trees that you can invest your points in.

Puzzles & Survival Commander Talents

• Economy boosts your gathering/production, building, and researching.
• Military boosts your troops’ stats.
• Balance is a bit of everything. It boosts your Sanctuary’s defenses/traps, training/healing troops, and stamina efficiency.

Each talent tree also has 3 unique skills that you can use if you invest enough points to reach them. To use them, go to your Sanctuary or world map and tap on the skill book in the bottom right corner.

When you initially begin the game, we suggest splitting your focus between the Economy and Military trees. You’ll want to invest enough points in both to unlock their first skills (Fast Producer and Recall). After that, it’ll be up to you if you want to focus on boosting your troops’ strength or gathering capabilities.

You can reset your talent trees and return all your points if you use a Talent Reset item. However, these a bit expensive, requiring 160k alliance coins to purchase in your alliance shop (under the ‘other’ tab).

Instead, try to reach VIP Level 10 as soon as possible for permanent free talent resets. You’ll also be able to save multiple talent sets and switch between them as needed to take advantage of their boosts and skills.

When to Swap Commander Talents

Note: The skills’ effects persist between talent swaps, so you can take advantage of activating Hunt Mastery from the Balance tree before swapping to your Military set to go hunting.

We recommend swapping to your Military build whenever you’re engaging in any troop battles (like in the Pit). Also do so before you set up/save your march formations, as you’ll be able to take advantage of the increased troop size.

Swap to your Economy build when you’re planning on doing research/building or before you send your troops out to gather. Remember, any boosts to gathering are applied when you send out the march. You can immediately swap to a different set afterwards.

When you’re not doing anything, we recommend switching to your Balance set for the increased stamina regeneration. It far outweighs any resource output you would get from the Economy tree. Additionally, swap to it before you start training your troops or healing them to speed up the process.