Last War heroes: tips for using them properly

The heroes represent your different teams for attacking zombies or other players.
You start with one team and can have up to 4 as you progress.

Presentation

Heroes are categorised into 3 rarities:

SR (rare): weak heroes that you'll get quickly at the start of the game.
SSR (epic): stronger than SR heroes, they will stay with you for a long time while you wait to unlock all UR heroes
UR (legendary): these are the most powerful heroes in the game, and will take some time to unlock, sometimes at a cost.

Each hero has 4 basic characteristics:

Attack: increases the damage inflicted on enemies
HP: the amount of damage the hero can take
Defence: reduces the damage dealt
Troop capacity: number of units accompanying the hero

In addition to these basic characteristics, there is also the critical hit rate, which increases the percentage chance of inflicting a critical hit.

These characteristics essentially increase with the hero's level and rank, but you can also improve them with equipment, exclusive weapons, decorations, etc.

Obtaining heroes

To obtain heroes, you can use Hero recruitment tickets.
Each time you use a ticket, you have a chance of receiving a hero fragment: please note that only certain UR heroes can be unlocked via these tickets.

There are also other types of recruitment ticket available in certain seasons:

Return of the Hero recruitment ticket
New Era Recruitment Ticket

These tickets are similar but allow you to unlock additional heroes than the classic tickets.

Some chests also allow you to choose the hero you want :

Legendary Hero Choice Chest 1, available via the Treasure Map: this allows you to choose between Kimberly, Murphy, DVA, Carlie, Tesla, Swift and Marshall.
Glitter Market Hero Chest: lets you choose between Kimberly, Murphy, DVA, Carlie, Tesla, Swift, Marshall, Williams, Skyler, McGregor, Stetmann and Lucius

Ghost ops are also a way of obtaining heroes by taking part in missions where you're missing a hero as a reward, allowing you to obtain between 1 and 5 fragments.

Once you have 10 fragments of the same hero, you unlock him and he becomes available to your teams.

Improving a hero

The experience

To improve a hero, you can use experience points: you get them by killing zombies or cursed elites, but also via Hero EXP Chests at various events.

The maximum hero level depends on your HQ, with each HQ level allowing you to increase your heroes by 5 levels.
For example, with a HQ of 20, you can raise your heroes to level 100. At HQ 30, your heroes can reach level 150.

The fragments

The second way of improving your heroes is by using fragments: you can use fragments specific to your hero or universal fragments.
Heroes are made up of 5 ranks (represented by stars) and each rank is divided into 5.

Each portion of a rank you pass increases your hero's HP, attack and defence.
Each unlocked rank increases the maximum level of the hero's skills (see below).

The skills

Then, each hero has their own specific skills: these can be attacks or passive skills such as increased damage or defence.

At rank 4 for UR and SSR heroes, you unlock a 4th skill:

SSR: +10% HP, attack and defence
UR: +20% HP, attack and defence. +10% skill cooldown.

Should I upgrade all the heroes?

Especially not!
At the start, concentrate on your T1: that's where you need to spend EXP points, skill medals and universal fragments.
Increasing your T1 is your main objective: there's no point in having 3 average teams as this will hold you back in events compared to a powerful T1.

When you're stuck for progress, particularly due to the level of your HQ, you can spend your EXP on your T2 and T3.
Hero-specific fragments can be used at any time.

Team training

With 5 heroes, you can put together a team.
You can have up to 4 teams (3 teams depending on your HQ level, then a 4th with the monthly pass).

Although very tempting, you shouldn't put together your team by choosing the heroes you prefer!
In fact, you must respect :

placement according to their type: attack, defender or support
the bonus of each hero

Placing heroes

You must place your heroes correctly:

two defenders in front
two attackers behind on the sides
an extra support or attacker in the back row in the middle

Hero type bonus

Once the Capitol has been conquered for the first time, the troop bonus based on hero type (Tank, Aircraft, Missile) is unlocked.
This bonus allows you to increase the HP, attack and defence of your heroes according to the number of units of the same type:

3 heroes of the same type: +5
3 heroes of the same type and 2 of another type: +10
4 heroes of the same type: +15
5 heroes of the same type: +20

Examples:

5 Tank heroes: +20% bonus
2 Tank heroes and 3 Airplane heroes: +10% bonus

Optimum Team Tank

Up front : Murphy and Williams
Alternative: Violet and Scarlett

Behind: Kimberly, Stretman and Marshall
Alternative: Mason and Monica

Team Hélico optimale

In front : Carlie and Lucius
Alternative: Cage

Behind: DVA, Skyler and Morrison
Alternative: Sarah and Maxwell

Team Missile optimale

In front : McGregor and Adam
Alternative: Elsa

Behind: Fiona, Tesla and Swift
Alternative: Braz and Venom

The equipment

Each hero can be equipped with 4 items to improve their characteristics: a cannon, a data chip, armour and radar.
These items come in 3 different qualities, and you should opt for UR equipment.

Equipment plant

The equipment factory allows you to make equipment and dismantle equipment you no longer need.
Upgrade to level 20 to unlock UR equipment manufacturing.

By dismantling other equipment you can obtain materials.
By fusing these materials, you can obtain others of a higher level (4 materials gives you 1 material of a higher level).

Equipment strategy

At the start of the game, we recommend that you concentrate on your T1: to do this, equip it entirely with SSR equipment.
Do not equip anything on your T2 and T3: you must first have a powerful T1 before dealing with the other teams.

Then, as you go along, replace each piece of equipment with a UR version.
Once all your T1s are UR-equipped, do the same with your T2s and T3s.

Improving equipment

Equipment can be upgraded up to level 40 using Gold and Upgrade Stones.
Upgrades beyond level 40 cost Gold, Upgrade Stones, Dielectric Ceramics and Upgrade Schematics.

Tip: buy upgrade schematics as soon as possible, even if you can't use them at the moment.
They take a very long time to obtain and it's better to have some in advance than to get stuck with your upgrades.