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Repair common Windows errors and clear accumulated junk for a smoother, more stable PC - no reinstall needed.Free scan · no reinstallBuild one complete five-hero squad, keep its levels matched, and spend scarce materials on that squad before widening your roster. Put a durable tank in front, one primary damage dealer behind it, and use the remaining positions for support or secondary damage. In the Sanctuary, secure food, timber, herbs, storage, medicine, and treatment capacity before forcing the next Sanctuary tier. Keep Development research running and repair a defensible choke point before major Rat Swarm waves. This approach follows the game’s central objective: “Survive the plague. Rebuild the sanctuary.”
How many heroes should you upgrade?
For early progression, treat one five-hero team as your main squad. Upgrade every member of that squad to the highest level your account can sustain, rather than distributing Antitoxin, shards, Skill Badges, and equipment across every recruit. A level-matched team produces a dependable power spike; five partially upgraded heroes usually do not.
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Cover the three jobs first
| Role | Primary job | What to look for | Beginner investment |
|---|---|---|---|
| Frontline tank | Absorb damage and buy time for the back line | Durability, damage mitigation, control resistance, or reliable protection skills | Finish survivability upgrades before deep investment in bench heroes |
| Primary damage dealer | End fights before attrition overwhelms the team | Sustained damage for ordinary encounters or burst for bosses and short damage windows | Give the next major level, star, skill, and offensive-equipment upgrades after the tank is stable |
| Support or secondary damage | Increase survival, damage, or efficiency in the mode you are playing | Healing, buffs, debuffs, control, or dependable supplemental damage | Prioritize skills that directly improve the deployed squad |
The exact five names should change with your pulls, star levels, faction bonuses, and game mode. The permanent rule is role coverage and a complete main squad—not rarity by itself and not a collection of isolated high-level recruits.
Where Arthur and Marlena fit
The official hero guide presents Arthur as an early Tavern UR tank and a frontline anchor. If you have him, he is a natural first choice for the tank position. Marlena is described as a UR Warrior carry suited to boss pressure, PvE damage, and burst windows, making her a strong primary damage choice when available.
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Players with the relevant heroes can use an all-Warrior starter approach, but it is not a requirement. If Marlena is missing, use the strongest available carry with a comparable job. If Arthur is missing, use the most durable frontline hero in your roster. Do not force a faction or class composition that leaves the team without a tank, damage source, or useful support simply because it looks uniform.
When a second team becomes worthwhile
Build a second team only after the first team reaches a progression wall that cannot be solved by a reasonable level, skill, gear, or strategy improvement. Early materials have a high opportunity cost, and broad roster investment can leave every team too weak to clear current content. A second team becomes more defensible when a mode requires simultaneous deployments, a faction or class prerequisite blocks progress, or your main squad has reached a stable point with surplus materials.
What should you upgrade first?
Hero progression uses three main material paths: Antitoxin for levels, hero-specific or omni shards for stars, and Skill Badges for skills. Equipment adds another major source of power. The official guide warns that costs rise sharply after early milestones, so protect each material type for the main squad.
- Keep the whole main squad level-matched. Raise every deployed hero to the highest level the account can sustain instead of creating one extreme carry surrounded by underpowered allies.
- Secure the tank’s survivability. Improve the frontline hero’s level, defensive skills, stars, and defensive equipment enough to survive ordinary encounters. A dead tank removes the time your damage dealer needs to work.
- Develop the primary carry. Give the next major level, star breakpoint, offensive skill, and damage-oriented equipment to the hero responsible for ending fights.
- Upgrade direct team-support skills. Spend Skill Badges on buffs, healing, mitigation, control, or debuffs that improve the current squad before investing in collection-depth abilities.
- Delay bench investment. Save broad roster upgrades until the main team clears its current progression wall or a specific mode requires a different role.
How to decide between two heroes
Rarity is only one input. Compare the two candidates on the dimensions below, then choose the one that solves your current bottleneck.
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| Comparison axis | Question to ask |
|---|---|
| Frontline durability | Can this hero survive long enough to protect the carry? |
| Sustained or burst damage | Does the mode reward steady output or a short damage window? |
| Support value | Do the skills improve the whole squad’s survival or damage? |
| Faction or class synergy | Will the hero activate bonuses with the team you actually deploy? |
| Shard availability | Can you acquire enough hero-specific or omni shards to keep progression moving? |
| Mode usefulness | Does the hero solve the campaign, boss, event, or resource-battle problem in front of you? |
A slightly lower-rarity hero that you can consistently star up and equip can outperform a rare hero that remains stuck at an early breakpoint. Re-evaluate when your available shards, faction bonuses, or game mode changes.
Which resources matter first in the Sanctuary?
Food, timber, and herbs are the first production priorities. Herbs deserve particular attention because medicine and treatment are part of the core loop, not optional side systems. Keep storage from reaching its cap so production continues to accumulate, and keep medicine and ward capacity ahead of patient demand.
Recommended early build order
| Priority | Buildings or systems | Reason |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Farm, Lumberyard, Herb Garden | Stabilize food, timber, and herb income—the inputs that support construction and treatment. |
| 2 | Storage buildings | Prevent capped storage from wasting offline production and allow larger upgrades to be funded. |
| 3 | Sanctuary level | Unlock the next systems only when your economy can support their operating costs and prerequisites. |
| 4 | Wards and treatment capacity | Keep patient care ahead of incoming demand so injuries do not become a lasting production problem. |
| 5 | Defensive towers | Add protection after the economy and treatment loop are stable; concentrate coverage at defensible choke points. |
| 6 | Research | Maintain a continuous queue, beginning with Development technologies. |
Why storage is an early upgrade, not an afterthought
A full resource store silently turns off effective production. This is especially costly when you are offline or waiting for a long construction timer. Before claiming a large reward or starting an upgrade, check that the relevant storage has room. If a store repeatedly caps, raise storage capacity or spend the resource on a useful prerequisite rather than allowing production to sit idle.
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Should you rush the Sanctuary level?
Do not rush a Sanctuary tier blindly. A higher tier unlocks systems, but those systems are useful only when production, storage, medicine, wards, and treatment can support them. An independent sanctuary guide reports that costs and prerequisite lists rise substantially from Sanctuary level 11 onward. Treat level 11 and later as planning checkpoints: scout the next prerequisite, identify the resource that will block it, and stockpile that resource before committing to the major upgrade.
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A pre-upgrade readiness check
- Confirm every listed prerequisite instead of assuming the next tier is gated only by the Sanctuary building itself.
- Check food, timber, herbs, and the specific construction material required by the upgrade.
- Raise storage capacity if the cost would exceed your current cap.
- Leave enough medicine and treatment capacity to handle ordinary patient demand while builders are occupied.
- Make sure the upgrade will not interrupt a more urgent research, healing, or defensive response.
If an upgrade unlocks a feature you cannot yet feed with resources, the immediate power gain may be smaller than improving the production or storage that supports your current loop. Compare the upgrade’s prerequisite impact and bottleneck relief against an economy upgrade before spending the entire reserve.
What research should beginners run?
Keep the research queue active. Development technologies are the best general early targets because they improve building speed, research speed, training speed, resource production, and healing speed. These effects accelerate almost every other activity, so an idle queue represents lost account-wide progress.
After the Development foundation
Once the broad Development foundation is in place, specialize hero technologies around the classes in your deployed main squad. If your team is built around Warriors, Warrior-focused technologies are more useful than investing heavily in an unrelated class. Avoid deep investment in classes you are not using unless a prerequisite requires it or a near-term mode demands that role.
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When choosing between a research node and another upgrade, compare immediate bottleneck relief, account-wide acceleration, prerequisite impact, storage and production readiness, and whether the node strengthens the squad you actually deploy. A small-looking research bonus can be valuable when it applies continuously, but it should not leave the Sanctuary unable to pay for treatment or a required construction step.
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When should you prepare for Rat Swarm?
Prepare before a major wave, not after the first structures fall. Repair damaged buildings, strengthen the main choke point, and verify that the tank and primary damage dealer can comfortably survive ordinary waves. If normal waves already force emergency healing, a larger wave will expose the weakness.
Concentrate defenses
The official beginner guidance cautions against building towers everywhere. Thin coverage across the entire map often produces less practical protection than concentrated coverage at defensible choke points. Place or improve towers where the swarm must pass, keep the frontline positioned to hold that route, and avoid scattering materials across low-value perimeter positions.
Rat Swarm readiness checklist
- Repair every damaged structure that affects the chosen defensive route.
- Confirm the tank has enough survivability to hold the choke point.
- Confirm the carry can defeat ordinary enemies before they overwhelm treatment capacity.
- Concentrate tower coverage instead of creating isolated, underpowered defenses.
- Keep medicine, wards, and treatment capacity ahead of expected casualties.
- Do not start a major Sanctuary construction if it would leave the defense unable to recover from the wave.
Daily operating checklist for steady progress
A short routine prevents most avoidable losses in the early game:
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- Check that treatment and ward capacity remain ahead of incoming patient demand.
- Use alliance help before spending speedups on major upgrades.
- Upgrade one core hero at a time instead of flattening the roster.
- Scout the next Sanctuary prerequisite before committing resources to a tier upgrade.
- Keep a research queue active, starting with Development technologies.
- Check event registration and unlock requirements before spending scarce items.
Common beginner mistakes and fixes
Spreading Antitoxin across the whole roster
Symptom: many heroes have similar low levels, but no team can clear the next wall. Fix: return to the main five, level-match them, and pause bench spending until the deployed squad is functional.
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Building around rarity alone
Symptom: a rare damage hero dies before contributing or the team lacks a durable frontline. Fix: restore role coverage first. Use a tank, a carry, and support or secondary damage that fits the mode; then weigh rarity, shards, and synergy.
Rushing a Sanctuary tier with capped or weak production
Symptom: the new tier unlocks systems you cannot operate, or the next prerequisite drains every reserve. Fix: improve Farm, Lumberyard, Herb Garden, storage, and treatment capacity, then stockpile the blocking resource before trying again.
Letting research sit idle
Symptom: construction, training, and healing all feel slower than necessary. Fix: maintain a queue and prioritize Development technologies before narrow class branches.
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Symptom: several towers exist, but none can stop the route that enemies actually use. Fix: repair the key choke point and concentrate coverage there.
What to do when progress stalls
First identify whether the failure is combat, economy, or timing. If the tank dies first, invest in frontline survivability. If enemies survive too long, improve the carry’s level, stars, skills, or offensive equipment. If resources are missing, raise the production or storage that is capping or lagging, especially herbs when treatment is the constraint. If a Sanctuary upgrade is blocked, inspect the prerequisite list rather than spending randomly. If an event or wave is near, preserve medicine, speedups, and upgrade materials for the requirement that directly affects that deadline.
Values and costs can change as the game is updated. Guide-listed Antitoxin milestones are useful planning examples, not permanent balance guarantees; use the requirements shown in your current game client when they differ.
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