State of Survival: Heroes Guide

There 3 types of heroes in the game: Elite, Epic and Legendary. I will explain the difference between them and share some tips on earning necessary ones, both for F2P and P2P players.

Version history:
1.8 - 04/12/2020 - T5 Heroes update;
1.7 - 23/11/2020 - Major guide rework;
1.6 - 13/10/2020 - Added some clarification about maxed rank Hero Fragments;
1.5 - 20/09/2020 - Rumours about T6 Heroes added;
1.4 - 19/09/2020 - Added maximum Hero Lvl. per Rank and 2 new T5 Heroes;
1.3 - 09/09/2020 - Rewritten some Heroes summary + Brooke added;
1.2 - 06/09/2020 - Tier 4 added + A new section of where to find a particular hero;
1.1 - 04/09/2020 - formatting & grammar mistakes correction;
1.0 - 25/06/2020 - guide created.

Overview

Heroes in SoS are key to success. When you start the game from scratch, some heroes are automatically added to your hero pool while others can be unlocked by collecting their hero fragments. You can check below which event(s) will help you build a particular Hero.

Please note Heroes will be unlocked once your state matures (so-called state evolution). These new heroes will be unlocked in Tiers. You always start in a new state with Tier 1 heroes, which are followed by Tier 2 after 2-3 months, then Tier 3 and finally Tier 4.

Each hero has certain skills and specialities, thus you need to utilize them accordingly depending on the content you’re focused on.

Most important starting tip about your heroes – focus only ONE hero per type (brawler, marksman and scout). That means all your resources (fragments, experience books, skill books) are spent maximum at 3 different heroes. If you start upgrading multiple heroes at the same time, you will NOT get an advantage both in PvE and PvP.

Heroes screen

1. Sort Hero list (Power / Rarity / Hero Rank / Level);
2. Hero specialization (see below);
3. Hero current level, experience, increase level / exp button;
4. Hero rank, increase rank button;
5. Hero skills, upgrade skills button;
6. Hero gear, change gear (see below);
7. Enable / disable Hero upgrade notifications switch;
8. Hero Power.

Hero Rank screen

1. Current Hero rank;
2. Next Hero rank;
3. Upgrade requirements;
4. Exchange Universal Hero fragments into the chosen Hero fragments.

Hero Skills screen

1. Skills selection and their current levels;
2. Skill description and impact current / next level while doing Explorer Missions;
3. Skill description and impact current / next level while rallying;
4. Upgrade requirements, amount of materials available / needed for upgrade.

Hero Types

There are 3 types of Heroes. You can find hero type by looking at the icon next to the name.

• Brawler (fist) – boosting Infantry troops;
• Marksman (scope) – boosting Hunter troops;
• Scout (knife) – boosting Rider troop;

There are 3 types of Hero’s rarity:

• Elite – easily obtainable, lowest power;
• Epic – commonly obtainable, medium power;
• Legendary – hard to obtain but highest power.

I also split heroes into spending categories:

• F2P – the hero can be obtained via certain in-game activities and doesn’t need real $ investments;
• P2P – the hero can NOT be obtained via any in-game activities and can only be purchased via bundles for real $;
• F2P/P2P – the hero can be both obtained via certain in-game activities or purchased via bundles for real $.

Hero Fragments per Rank requirements

Once you have found enough fragments of a certain hero, you can unlock him and start using.

To rank Hero up:

• You need either to find more of his hero fragments or exchange universal hero fragments.
• You also need to have proper amount of hero badges, but they are not hard to find, so I won’t mention their requirements here.

What happens when you have maxed Hero rank out, but you still get his/her Hero Fragments? See below official response from the in-game support:

Please do note that the maxed Hero Fragments you are receiving are still being counted in your inventory even if they are not visible, our tech team informed us that in the future those fragments can be recycled in order to receive different rewards, we kindly ask you to stay tuned and follow us on our Facebook page and in-game for any news and updates regarding this matter.

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Which Heroes NOT to prioritize?

Even though these Heroes do exist in the game, spending any resources on them can be justified only in one case – you have every other Hero maxed out and you don’t know what to do with excessive Hero Fragments. Or you need to score some additional points during events like SOTF.

Otherwise, just skip them and move on – they all have pretty much same stats, skills and, in a similar way, useless to play with – filler Heroes which Developers implemented for no obvious reason.

• Becca
  
• Eunjoo
  
• Candy
  
• Basel
  
• Jane
  
• Tony
  

Which Heroes to prioritize?

Clicking on the image below will open a dedicated page with skills’ description and Hero’s background story!

Tier 1

Timeline: available on Day 0

Heroes in this category are available from scratch – once the state is created. They are least powerful, but most easily obtainable and once upgraded enough can serve you for a long time!

• Sarge (F2P)
  
  #1 hero to work on. He’s great both in PvE and PvP due to his Turret skill, proving 25% troop damage increase.
• Travis (F2P)
  
  Priority #2 due to his unique skill reducing Stamina cost by 20% per march. It will save you tons of Stamina, allowing to kill more infected (solo or via rallies). You can easily maximize him on early stages and use as an instructor in your Hero Precinct.
• Maddie & Frank (F2P/P2P)
  
  One of the best heroes in-game, strong for PvE and good for PvP. Moreover, you can fully max her out by just playing long enough. She’s the first hero who can be earned via Ray’s Place spins (though I won’t recommend to do that and save biocaps for Tier 2/Tier 3 heroes instead).
• Eva (F2P)
  
  She’s the only Epic hero with a Siege specialization. Boosting her will allow you raiding enemy HQs for resources.
• Mike (F2P)
  
  He can’t compete with Sarge or Eva, but it’s nice to have him for the Food farming boost. Mike is also a beast while doing Explorer Trail missions or any special event hunting (where you need to send a squad of 3 heroes), out damaging literally everyone else!
• Chef (F2P)
  
  He provides a nice boost for your infantry, higher than Rusty. Also, he allows you farming Wood way quicker. Stats-wise, he’s worse than any Legendary hero – but you’re stuck with him for a long time as a F2P due to high amount of Hero fragments you can collect. P2P players should get rid of him ASAP or just skip and build Nikola instead.
• Rusty (F2P)
  
  Good for the Metal farming boost only. You can easily maximize him on early stages and use as an instructor in your Hero Precinct.
• Ghost (F2P)
  
  His Troop health increase skill makes him a viable option for PvP and he helps you farming Gas quicker – you will need a lot for the HQ upgrades.
• Lucky (P2P)
  
  Strong and universal hero, both PvE and PvP. Obtainable via VIP packages only. On par with Tier 2 heroes, but falls off once you have Tier 3 maxed out.
• Nikola (F2P/P2P)
  
  Nice hero for attacking Infected due to attack boost, unfortunately, his skill doesn’t work while attacking the Influencer Trap and Nikola is useless in PvP. Can be bought through daily deals, found in Epic Search Maps or contested via different events, mainly SOTF.
• Ray & Rolex (P2P)
  
  Very expensive and worse than later Tiers’ heroes, I do NOT recommend investing into him until developers rework him or buff his stats.

Tier 2

Timeline: ~2 months after T1 (~2 months from Day 0)

After the first 2 months or so, 3 more Heroes are added to the pool. I’d describe them as defensive-oriented cause their skills are mostly focused around settlement protection bonuses.

• Wolfe (F2P/P2P)
  
  He’s a good hero when solo attacking other settlements. Not so great for other PvP activities in case you’ve decided to buy Ray&Rolex. Can be obtained via Value Vouchers event or purchased via daily deals.
• Trish (F2P/P2P)
  
  One of the most useless T2 Heroes, which can be obtained via Value Vouchers event or Ray’s Wheel.
• Jeb (F2P/P2P)
  
  Jeb is your go-to hero during Kill Event. His unique skill to decrease enemy’s Settlement Troop Lethality can save you a lot of troops from being lost forever (remember that when you attack someone’s HQ your lost troops don’t appear in the Enlistment Office). He’s also decent in PvP both during T2 Heroes introduction and, later on, once T3 are in.

Tier 3

Timeline: ~2 months after T2 (~4 months from Day 0)

Together with getting Plasma Buildings being introduced, 3 more Heroes will be joining the state later on. They are heavily PvP-oriented and would significantly improve your ability to attack and defend Bunkers, Fortresses and Capital, at the same time over damaging T1 and T2 Heroes in the rest of (PvE) activities due to increased troops stats’ boosts.

• Zoe (F2P/P2P)
  
  Your P2P late-game Sarge replacement. Zoe is great in all activities, however, becomes only applicable at Influencer Trap once T4 Heroes are in.
• Miho (F2P/P2P)
  
  Same as Zoe, Miho is great in all activities, but becomes obsolete once T4 Heroes are in.
• Ash (F2P/P2P)
  
  Your late-game Chef replacement. Ash is the only Hero still applicable after T4 introduction and since she’s available at Ray’s Wheel you can rank her up quite high even being F2P.

Tier 4 (old)

Timeline: ~2 months after T3 (~6 months from Day 0)

There were 3 T4 Heroes which developers decided to phase out from the game completely. In the newer states, you won’t be able to see them because they are skipped. In the older states, their fragments became exchangeable into the better Tier 4 Heroes with higher stats and more powerful skills.

As result, these 3 Heroes are outdated and not applicable anymore. I will leave them here just for historical purposes 🙂

• Jarrett (F2P/P2P)
  
  When paired with Heroes who have a high damage output capacity, Jarrett is able to greatly increase their damage output. At the same time, Jarrett’s own skill damage is also not to be underestimated in combat. Jarrett’s versatility means that he can not only serve as a powerful damage dealer himself but perhaps, more importantly, improves the damage ability of the army as a whole.
• Zach (F2P/P2P)
  
  Your late-game Maddie&Frank replacement. Zach is out damaging M&F even at 10 Levels deficit (i.e. when he’s Lvl. 60 and M&F is Lvl. 70).
• Ernie (F2P/P2P)
  
  Your late-game Chef/Nikola/Wolfe replacement. Ernie is on par with Ash stats-wise but wins over the biker lady cause of higher skills damage output.

Tier 4 (new)

Timeline: ~2 months after T3 (~6 months from Day 0)

Starting September 2^nd 2020, SoS Test Server was opened for a number of selected players. We’ve been introduced to, what we believed, the first Tier 5 Hero (Brooke) and had a chance to test her on the battlefield. One month later, the same testing repeated with 2 more Heroes – Tyler and Julie.

What hapenned in reality was that these Heroes were not T5, but reworked version of the T4 (Ernie, Zach, Jarrett). They came with same reworked skill system (when you don’t need legendary skills books anymore, but each skill levels up automatically at a certain Hero rank) AND way higher stats when compared to any existing Hero generation.

Initial testing of all 3 T5 Heroes proves their absolute dominance above everyone else. They were released publicly without any changes, making all previous Heroes totally useless.

• Brooke (F2P/P2P)
  
  She’s too powerful, simply build her as soon as possible. You can purchase her fragments via Value Vouchers event, but due to strict limit of 100 fragments per event for F2P you won’t be able to build here to a decent level – thus F2P should stay with Ash.
• Tyler (P2P)
  
  Same story as Brooke, but he’s not available via Value Vouchers event, making Tyler completely P2P.
• Julie (F2P/P2P)
  
  Julie is available via Ray’s Wheel, giving F2P a small chance to max her out. Cause she’s 3 times more powerful than Maddie&Frank AND applicable in PvP don’t hesitate to put all your biocaps in those spins!

Tier 5 coming soon? Yes.

There’s no indication that developers are working on the new Heroes as of now. I can only assume they won’t launch Tier 5 earlier than January 2021.

Out of sudden, developers have released 3 new T5 Heroes in December 2020. They are available for testing in State 1 to 39. It is not clear how long testing is gonna last, but we already know new Heroes are at least 25% stronger than the previous generation due to attack/defence bonus increased to 490% (T4 have 390%).

• Emma&Eli
  
  New Infantry Hero
• Roxy Tamika Robinson
  
  New Hunter Hero
• Jack “Tweak” Pickard
  
  New Rider Hero

Wait or not to wait?

One of the most popular questions I’m getting these days: if you’re a F2P or low-spender (under $100 per month) – should you wait for T4 Heroes from Day 0 saving all your resources or still invest into some T1-T3 Heroes on your 6 months journey to the T4?

Thanks to the Collab Team, we have a definite answer. They’ve tested all existing Heroes across all events and came up with the below results. It’s mostly P2P-oriented (sorry F2P folks, you have to stay with Chef almost forever!) but gives a good summary of what I wrote above across each particular Hero.

Please note the table below is comparing maxed out Heroes (both rank- and skills-wise).

Activity	T1	T2	T3	T4
Infected (Horde etc.)
Infected (Trap only)
PvP solo
PvP rally
PvP group (Bunker, RR, Capital Clash)

Where to obtain a particular Hero?

Since there are multiple events in-game and also Heroes are added in Tiers as your state matures, here’s a recap of where you can find a particular Hero Fragment – to help new players navigating through the content.

Hero	Hero Search	Event (s)	Hero Packs	Value Vouchers	VIP Bundles	Special Intel	Alliance Store	Plague Zone
	✔	✘	✘	✘	✘	✘	✔	✘
	✔	✘	✘	✘	✘	✔	✘	✘
	✔	✘	✘	✘	✘	✔	✘	✘
	✔	✘	✘	✘	✘	✘	✘	✔
	✔	✘	✘	✘	✘	✔	✘	✘
	✔	✘	✘	✘	✘	✔	✘	✘
	✔	✘	✘	✔	✘	✔	✘	✘
	✘	✔	✘	✘	✘	✘	✘	✘
	✔	✔	✔	✔	✘	✘	✘	✘
	✔	✔	✘	✔	✘	✘	✘	✘
	✘	✘	✘	✘	✔	✘	✘	✘
	✘	✘	✘	✘	✔	✘	✘	✘

Hero Specialization

Each hero is specialized in a certain activity. Some of them increase your farming speed, others are good while defending settlement. What you would like to focus on is maximizing offensive heroes – those you can find in Siege / Rally sections.

Hero Comparison

Available here:

Hero Gear

Special Thanks to

• Hero Specialization: Image credits to Ember’s YouTube Video.
• Where to obtain a particular hero: Teddy / The Collab Team
• What happens with fragments of a maxed rank Hero: Matthew
• Wait or not to wait? Request / The Collab Team