Heroes

Heroes are characters in the game that you assemble into teams for various battles, raids and rallies. They come in different levels of strength with 2-stars being the lowest and most common, to 6-stars being the strongest and most rare. The way the game is set up, the player doesn't receive a "hero," per se. Rather, the player receives fragments of a hero, or "frags." It takes 10 frags to piece together a hero. Sometimes you get all 10 frags at once, with one click of a button. But usually the frags trickle in over time.

The easiest way to obtain 2-star, 3-star, and 4-star heroes is through Noah's Tavern, which is one of the buildings in everyone's Sanctuary. There you can obtain hero frags for free each day. You can also obtain coins through the Campaign, or Events, etc. Also, Zombie Lairs will drop chests, and sometimes those chests will have 3-star, 4-star, or even 5-star choice cards where you can choose which hero frag (of the choices they give you) of that star-rating you want.

Heroes have 3 main functions in the game.

Match-3 function
First, and most obvious, is their role in the Match-3 element of the game. Each hero is assigned a color: either Rash (red), Brave (green), Calm (blue), Avid (purple), or Wary (yellow). As you make matches of the various color tiles, the damage from those tiles done to the enemy is calculated based on the specs of the hero, or cumulative specs of the heroes, that you have of that color on your team.

In addition to the tile damage done to the enemy, each hero has a "special" that can be used when their "rage" becomes full. Rage fills as you make tile matches of each color. The more tile matches you make of a color, the faster the rage fills of the heroes of that color.

Each hero's special is different, and forethought and planning is sometimes required to make most effective use of each ability. Sometimes the special is a simple hard hit. Sometimes the special lowers the enemy's defenses by a certain percentage for a certain number of turns, otherwise known as a debuff. Other heroes heal their team or help beef up defenses.

Boost to Troops
Secondly, many heroes boosts the stats of Troops. For example, if a particular hero boosts Fighter troops by 10%, then when going on a Raid or Rally a player's Fighter troops will all hit 10% harder if that hero is on the team. This extends to multiple heroes, as well. If a player has two heroes who each boosts Fighter troops by 10%, and the player puts both heroes on their Raid team, then the Fighter troops in that team would all hit 20% harder.

Economy
The third most important function of heroes is the role many play in the economy of the game. Many of these are extremely valuable. You will find skills that decrease the cost of wood and steel in building or researching, or skills that boost production of food or gas. Or a skill that increases the size of your troops on raids, or your troop load for gathering.

For heroes with Economy attributes (i.e., "Economy Heroes"), it is not necessary for them to be on a team for their skill to work. Their skills are passive. They will work just because you own the hero and have the hero unlocked at whatever level unlocks the various skills. The hero Otto, for instance, will still increase your troop size when he gets to Lv. 131 whether he's on the rally team or not. Your team will still be the larger size because of him. Your wood-gathering speed will still be faster even without the hero Bard on your gathering team. Just having him in your hero roster makes the wood gathering faster.

Upgrade/Evolve
The fastest most effective way to get a hero stronger is to increase its level (Upgrading it) by consuming Antiserum. As you keep upgrading the hero, you'll get to plateaus where you will have to "Evolve" the hero using various Combat Manuals found in the Campaign. Plateaus occur at levels 10, 30, 70, 130, and 210, with new Hero Skills or new Troop Skills becoming unlocked at levels 11, 31, 71, and 131.

Enhance
The second, and also very powerful, way to power heroes up is through Enhancing. It takes 10 Hero frags to get the original Hero. But, if you continue to collect that hero's frags, you will eventually have 10 more. Once you have that first extra 10 frags, you can "Enhance" that hero to a +1 Enhancement. What that means in practical terms is that that hero now has either stronger troop stats (i.e., stronger troop attack, defense, HP), or stronger economy stats (i.e., gathering speed is now increased). Also, the hero itself gets stronger stats which helps in the Campaign and in the Arena.

Each Enhancement level costs more frags. +1 costs 10 frags, +2 costs 20 frags, +3 costs 35 frags, +4 costs 50 frags, +5 costs 75 frags, +6 costs 150 frags, +7 costs 200 frags, and +8 costs 500 frags.

Recycling Heroes
At some point, you will either max out a hero, or for some other reason stop progressing a hero. In that case, you may not wish to collect that hero's frags anymore. When this is the case, you will want to recycle any frags of them you receive. Here is how it works.

At the top of the hero page, you will see a tab labeled "Bag" on the right. When you click on that tab, you will see all the heroes for which you have frags. To the right of each hero listed, you will see a "Recycle" button. When you click on that button, you'll be asked how many of that hero's frags you want to recycle. Make your choice, and at the top you'll see how many "Noah Points" you'll get. When you confirm that you do, indeed, what to recycle, then the exchange is made, and you will no longer have the frag(s), but instead will have those points available to you in Noah's Tavern.

To access this Exchange, go to Noah's Tavern. When you enter, at the top of the page, click on the tab "Exchange." There you'll see a list of available heroes, their price/frag, and how many points you have to spend.