Progression: skills & stars
Раздел гайда по героям: progression: skills & stars.
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🗓 Updated: 2026-10-12
Skill Upgrade Priorities
Skills eat badges, and badges are scarce. The order below is verified by community damage-per-badge analysis — it is not a feel, it is measured.
Marlena: Where the Damage Lives
Marlena is roughly 85% of your squad’s damage until Zoya arrives, and 50/50 with her afterward. She is the first place badges go.
But there is one trap inside her kit: never max Marlena’s auto-attack to 30 early. The verified order is:
- Ultimate first — always.
- Active skill second.
- Auto-attack last, and only to a modest level until her other skills are done.
Claire: The Passive Is the Point
Claire’s key skill is her passive — the team-wide damage amplifier. The verified plan: all skills to about 15, passive to 20, and hold there until Zoya arrives and reshuffles priorities.
Korpez’ Per-Hero Skill Sheet (Deep-Dive Numbers)
For each hero Korpez goes through every skill with a target level. Distillation:
- Marlena — Peerless Blade to 25 → Wargod’s Will to 25 → Crimson Bloom to 20 → back: Peerless Blade 30, Wargod’s Will 30. (8★ first to unlock Tenacity: +20% ATK/HP/DEF, +10% skill cooldown.)
- Arthur — max stars comes free, but his skills are weak endgame; leftovers only, Ult+passive to ~20 at most.
- Escanor — shield scales off max DEF (ult) and max HP (passive shields DPS below 50% HP); invest in gear, skip his attack skills.
- Cynthia — auto-attack to ~15, Lunar Hunt to ~20-25, get the Moonfall Dance passive high (25–30; stars upgrade it to hit the whole enemy team).
- Annie — Candy ~20, Surprise Gift ~20–25, Candy Jar (ult) to 30, Charged Gummies to 30. Gear: sword+gloves 40+, boots 2★+, chest low.
- Joker — pure backline killer: his basic card hits the lowest-HP enemy, ultimate targets the backline directly; stack crit on sword.
- Billy (Warlock tank) — Fate’s Thread protects your top-2 ATK allies (25+); his passive grants near-total Red Lady stun immunity.
- Nicole — support with DPS-tier healing off her ATK stat; heals trigger on burning enemies (Joker synergy).
- Bell — her heals scale with ATK, not DEF: ignoring sword+gloves cuts her healing from ~205K to ~66K. Yes — put real damage gear on your “support”.
- Ash & Celia (SR) — the only purple heroes worth skills: Ash = +monster damage buff, Celia = resource-gather buff. Everything else SR stays at base.
- General: never spend skill points on tanks’ attack skills; never on a tank’s sword at all.
Star Breakpoints and Tenacity
Stars are the biggest single multiplier on hero might. The significant power jump arrives after 4 stars — below that a hero is a seat-warmer, above it the same hero starts winning fights. This is why the community’s first star target on every main-squad hero is getting through 4, not scattering shards to make everyone evenly mediocre.
UR heroes have a second major breakpoint: at level 30 and 8 stars they unlock Tenacity. It is a large survivability jump and the reason 8 stars is the standard resting point for UR heroes — rushing Marlena to 8 stars (unlocked on Day 1 for $1 or recruited on Day 66 from the Tavern) is designed around it.
📊 Client data tables
Verified values from game client data (v1.0.87), source: wiki-last-asylum.com.
Requirements and cost
| Level | Stars | Badges |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | 0 | 0 |
| 5 | 4 | 300 |
| 10 | 6 | 1,200 |
| 15 | 7 | 3,100 |
| 20 | 8 | 6,900 |
| 25 | 9 | 12,100 |
| 30 | 10 | 18,400 |
| 35 | 10 | 25,900 |
| 40 | 10 | 33,400 |
Where they come from
| Source | Total | Per drop |
|---|---|---|
| Surprise Encounter boxes | 481,600 | 80,000 |
| Hero growth tasks | 375,000 | 4,500 |
| Abyss boss tasks | 317,000 | 50,000 |
| Arena season rewards | 263,800 | 21,000 |
| Growth goals | 172,910 | 10,000 |
| Leaderboards | 159,500 | 30,000 |
| Seasonal leaderboard groups | 135,000 | 30,000 |
| Era Pass | 67,300 | 16,000 |
| Undead Siege | 46,995 | 3,000 |
| Trials | 42,250 | 2,500 |
📚 Reference: Hero skills: slots, upgrades and cost
Data verified against the game client (v1.0.87, source: wiki-last-asylum.com).
Hero skills fill five slots and are upgraded with skill badges. There are two templates: an SR hero caps a skill at level 30 for 170,200 badges, while SSR and UR heroes cap at level 40 for 436,700. A full skill on a higher hero costs two and a half times more, which is why badges usually go into one hero rather than across the squad.
Five slots
The slots hold different kinds of skill. The first is the auto attack, firing all the time. The second is the ultimate, the strongest hit. The third is an active skill on cooldown, the fourth a passive one that works on its own. The fifth is a support skill, active while the hero sits outside the main squad.
Slots open with hero stars: the first at 5, then 10, 15, 20, and the fifth only at 40. The support skill arrives twice as late as the fourth, so a benched hero contributes nothing until 40 stars.
Two upgrades in one skill
A skill carries two separate upgrades that behave differently. The effect step is unlocked by hero stars and changes what the skill does, with damage growing from 40% to 200%. The level is bought with skill badges and simply raises the number. A step without levels gives little and levels without the step give as little, so both sides have to move together.
What a skill level actually needs
Skill badges cover only half of the requirement. Every level also demands hero stars, the top levels demand awakening on top, and until the stars are there the badges will not go in.
| Skill level | Stars needed | Awakening needed | Badges total |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 0 | - | 0 |
| 5 | 4 | - | 600 |
| 10 | 6 | - | 4,500 |
| 20 | 8 | - | 41,700 |
| 30 | 10 | - | 170,200 |
| 35 | 10 | 19 | 284,700 |
| 40 | 10 | 40 | 436,700 |
That is the advanced hero scale. A plain hero caps the skill at level 30 for 170,200 badges: the last ten levels belong to advanced heroes and only through awakening.
- Skill badges
- Hero stars
What links here
Pages that mention this one. The list is built from the markup, not filled by hand.
- Contents: heroes, army, events and spending
- Skill badges: cost and where they come from
- Hero stars: what they give and unlock
- Claire (Advanced): skills, upgrades and Might
- Nicole: skills, upgrades and Might
- Joker: skills, upgrades and Might
- Annie: skills, upgrades and Might
- Ulfrid: skills, upgrades and Might
- Billy: skills, upgrades and Might
- Bell: skills, upgrades and Might
- Red Lady: skills, upgrades and Might
- Cynthia: skills, upgrades and Might
- Louis: skills, upgrades and Might
- Shadow: skills, upgrades and Might
- Zoya: skills, upgrades and Might
- Harper: skills, upgrades and Might
- Daskal: skills, upgrades and Might
- Ash: skills, upgrades and Might
- William: skills, upgrades and Might
- Durant: skills, upgrades and Might
- Robin: skills, upgrades and Might
- Kafa: skills, upgrades and Might
- Hastar: skills, upgrades and Might
- Marlena: skills, upgrades and Might
- Bestar: skills, upgrades and Might
- Grenwald: skills, upgrades and Might
- Claire: skills, upgrades and Might
- Bella: skills, upgrades and Might
- Sivir: skills, upgrades and Might
- Griffith: skills, upgrades and Might
- Stellar: skills, upgrades and Might
- Lucius: skills, upgrades and Might
- Celia: skills, upgrades and Might
- Kesso: skills, upgrades and Might
- Arthur: skills, upgrades and Might
Comments
📚 Reference: Hero stars: what they give and unlock
Data verified against the game client (v1.0.87, source: wiki-last-asylum.com).
Hero stars raise HP, ATK and DEF, and every fifth star also upgrades one of the hero’s skills. There are 50 stars in total, and the full path costs 975 shards of that same hero. The shards have to come from that one hero, so stars depend on a shard source rather than on general resources.
What stars give
The table shows how much HP, ATK and DEF have accumulated at every fifth star and how many shards the next step costs.
| Stars | HP | ATK | DEF | Cost |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 1 | 5,664 | 42 | 42 | 2 |
| 5 | 28,309 | 203 | 203 | 2 |
| 10 | 60,228 | 428 | 428 | 3 |
| 15 | 95,613 | 682 | 682 | 4 |
| 20 | 135,516 | 968 | 968 | 6 |
| 25 | 177,976 | 1,269 | 1,269 | 8 |
| 30 | 225,862 | 1,615 | 1,615 | 12 |
| 35 | 282,476 | 2,018 | 2,018 | 25 |
| 40 | 346,321 | 2,476 | 2,476 | 35 |
| 45 | 417,087 | 2,978 | 2,978 | 40 |
| 50 | 496,891 | 3,548 | 3,548 | 60 |
What stars unlock
Every fifth star upgrades one of the skills, and the skill gains a new step with a stronger effect. The exact list for each hero is on their page under “What unlocks and when”.
- Hero shards
- Hero skills
What links here
Pages that mention this one. The list is built from the markup, not filled by hand.
- Contents: heroes, army, events and spending
- Hero Growth Tasks: who pays off and how much
- Honor levels: conditions, cost and payout
- Hero conversion: what it takes and gives
- Where to get heroes: summons, cost and the cap
- Hero shards: shard of every hero
- Hero skills: slots, upgrades and cost
- Claire (Advanced): skills, upgrades and Might
- Nicole: skills, upgrades and Might
- Joker: skills, upgrades and Might
- Annie: skills, upgrades and Might
- Ulfrid: skills, upgrades and Might
- Billy: skills, upgrades and Might
- Bell: skills, upgrades and Might
- Red Lady: skills, upgrades and Might
- Cynthia: skills, upgrades and Might
- Louis: skills, upgrades and Might
- Shadow: skills, upgrades and Might
- Zoya: skills, upgrades and Might
- Harper: skills, upgrades and Might
- Daskal: skills, upgrades and Might
- Ash: skills, upgrades and Might
- William: skills, upgrades and Might
- Durant: skills, upgrades and Might
- Robin: skills, upgrades and Might
- Kafa: skills, upgrades and Might
- Hastar: skills, upgrades and Might
- Marlena: skills, upgrades and Might
- Bestar: skills, upgrades and Might
- Grenwald: skills, upgrades and Might
- Claire: skills, upgrades and Might
- Bella: skills, upgrades and Might
- Sivir: skills, upgrades and Might
- Griffith: skills, upgrades and Might
- Stellar: skills, upgrades and Might
- Lucius: skills, upgrades and Might
- Celia: skills, upgrades and Might
- Kesso: skills, upgrades and Might
- Arthur: skills, upgrades and Might
Comments
Investment Order: Damage → Front → Support
A hero is a role before it is a portrait. The working squad template in this practice guide is 2 tanks + 2 damage dealers + 1 support: two tanks buy survival time, two damage dealers create pressure, one support multiplies a core that already exists.

How to read a role
- Shield — tank. Takes the hit, holds the front, protects the cast with defensive skills and damage reduction.
- Fire — damage dealer (carry). Removes enemies fast; a short fight deals less damage back to your team.
- Bottle — support. Buffs, sustain, resource help. Almost always scales with how strong the rest of the squad already is.
Spreading resources evenly builds five average heroes. Concentrating them builds one squad that clears content.

The order that moves progress
- Main damage dealer — fastest progress through campaign, PvE and events.
- Main tank — without a front, the carry never gets its cast off.
- Second damage dealer, second tank, then support.
Buffing a weak carry with an early support is a turbine on a shopping cart: loud, but it goes nowhere.
Main carry first: Marlena as the example
In a Warrior direction the example is Marlena. Three things matter for the main damage dealer: hero level, damage gear, and the key damage skill (for Marlena, the passive that raises energy damage — not a little of everything).

Gear priority for a carry is sword, then gloves. Armor and boots are not useless, but protection-first on a carry means both teams stay alive longer. Skills follow the same logic: raise the effect that raises the main damage type before side upgrades.

Second damage dealer: after the first has a base
The second damage dealer adds tempo, finishes targets and insures the main carry — but only after the first has level, key skill, sword and gloves. Splitting everything 50/50 too early produces two average hitters whose targets stay alive.
Pick the hero that actually stands in your main five now, not a “maybe later” project.
Tank second: Arthur holds the line
After the carry, the front must catch up. Arthur as the main tank needs levels, defensive gear and team-protection skills. Gear order is armor, then boots (armor against physical hits, boots for energy survivability and defensive thresholds).

What to raise on a tank: first the ultimate (Arthur’s reduces physical damage taken by allies in the zone), then passives that cut incoming damage or keep the second tank alive. An immortal front with no damage behind it just loses slowly and heroically.
Support third: Celia early, Harper later
Celia can hold the support slot early, but her value leans toward resources rather than direct battle power. Harper (attack buffs to allies, especially Warriors, via passive and ultimate) fits a Warrior battle squad far better — once there is something worth buffing.

Do not swap Harper in at level 1 just because he appeared. Transition gradually, and plan his resources ahead: the buff pays off when Marlena and Arthur plus a second damage dealer already stand.
Practical sequence: main damage dealer → main tank → second damage dealer → second tank → support when the core is ready.
Gear and skills by role, not by favorite
- Carry: sword → gloves first.
- Tank: armor → boots first.
- Support: protection if it dies and drops buffs, otherwise later.
- Never hand the best sword to the tank while the main carry lacks damage, and never max a carry’s armor before its damage pieces.
For skills, read the description: carry = damage and energy-or-physical amplifiers; tank = incoming-damage reduction, ally protection, front sustain; support = attack buff, faction buff, working team bonuses. At Marlena the damage gain matters, at Arthur team defense, at Harper the ally attack buff.
F2P discipline
- Pick a faction direction.
- Name the main damage dealer.
- Max it first, then the main tank, second damage dealer, second tank, support last.
- Do not chase every new pull; one finished squad beats a collection of half-built cards.
The same five-role search works in any faction: find your main carry, second carry, two tanks and support, then run damage → front → support. A strong hero without its faction, roles and team bonuses around it underperforms.

Six classic mistakes
- Leveling everyone a little — a weak foundation.
- Leveling support before the carry.
- Forgetting tanks — a dead carry deals zero.
- Same gear for every role — role first, item second.
- Rebuilding the squad for each new pull — new does not mean better.
- Spending without a plan — the most expensive resource is a wrong decision.
Diagnose with battle reports: tank dies instantly → front problem; long fight with no kills → damage problem; carry lives but underperforms → skills and gear check. Keep a 1–2 week plan (who now, who next, which item, which skills).

Source: Last Asylum: Plague - как правильно качать героев и не слить ресурсы впустую by Гейм-Знаток on DTF.
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