Last War: Survival hands you a roster fast, and that generosity is the trap. Shards are finite, upgrade materials are finite, and the game happily lets you spread both across a dozen heroes who will be bench filler by next season. The players who progress smoothly are not luckier at pulls. They just decided early who mattered. Here is how that decision should go in Season 6.
Build a Formation, Not a Collection
Heroes belong to vehicle types, and squads built around a single type activate stacking formation bonuses. That mechanic quietly outweighs raw hero quality, which is why a coherent Tank squad usually beats a mixed lineup of theoretically stronger units.
Tank remains the safest first formation for most accounts. It holds several of the strongest legendary heroes, gives you a defensive structure that survives PvP, and doubles as your reliable PvE clear. Aircraft and Missile squads matter later, once you have resources to fund a second lineup properly.
The Heroes That Earn Investment First
Kimberly is the standard answer, and for once the standard answer is correct. Her area damage scales well and stays relevant precisely when enemies stop melting instantly, which is the point most accounts stall. She is the first hero serious players commit attack-focused investment to.
Williams is the front-row anchor. He does not carry fights with damage; he carries them by refusing to die while Kimberly works. Skipping the tank because tanks feel boring is the most common early mistake in this game.
Murphy earns his slot once fights run long. His value is stabilisation, keeping a formation functional through the extended encounters where weaker lineups fall apart. He is also one of the friendlier options for players who are not spending heavily.
Marshall buffs attack and crit for the whole squad. He rarely spikes early, but in longer battles his contribution compounds while flashier heroes fade.
DVA supplies single-target burst. She is Aircraft type, so slotting her into a Tank squad costs you the same-type bonus, and most competitive accounts accept that trade anyway because the burst is worth it.
Schuyler is the one people skip and then wish they hadn’t. Control does not show up on a damage chart, so her contribution is invisible until you meet a lineup that outguns yours and you win anyway because half of it never got to act. She belongs in the “once your core is stable” tier rather than day one, but she goes in ahead of any sixth damage hero you were considering.
| Hero | Role | Why early investment pays |
|---|---|---|
| Kimberly | Area damage carry | Stays relevant as enemy durability rises |
| Williams | Frontline tank | Keeps the squad alive long enough to win |
| Murphy | Tank support | Stabilises formations in extended fights |
| Marshall | Attack support | Team-wide attack and crit buffs |
| DVA | Burst damage | Removes priority targets quickly |
| Schuyler | Control | Disruption that damage heroes cannot replicate |
Who Can Wait
Tesla and Fiona become excellent, but they belong to the Missile lane, and building that lane before your Tank squad is solid splits resources you do not have yet. Early frontline fillers do a job for a fortnight and then stop, so give them the minimum needed to clear content and nothing more. Resist the urge to max a hero purely because you happened to pull duplicates.
Awakening upgrades have become one of the biggest ranking factors this year, and heroes like Kimberly, DVA and Tesla gain the most from them. That is another argument for depth over breadth: an awakened core outperforms a wide roster of five-star placeholders.
Where Resources Actually Go
Hero levels first, then skills, then star rank through duplicate fragments, then gear that matches the hero’s role. Level suppression is real, so a squad five levels behind an opponent loses fights it looks like it should win on paper.
Progress in this game is gated by pull currency and speed-ups as much as by skill, which is why many players who want a specific hero finished before a server event pick up last war gold bricks through an independent store rather than waiting three weeks for shards to trickle in. Targeting one bottleneck beats trying to buy the whole mid-game.
Final Thoughts
Pick a formation, build six heroes properly, and ignore the rest of the roster until your core is genuinely finished. Kimberly and Williams first, Murphy and Marshall behind them, DVA when you can afford the trade and Schuyler once the core holds together. If you do decide to speed up a specific upgrade window, a Lootbar top up handles it without turning your account into a spending experiment. Depth wins this game. It always has.
