Upgrades

While getting XP, players will gain a single upgrade point each time they level up. They can use it for any of the seven upgrade categories, and you can spend a maximum of eight points into each category (Except Tower Shield, which can only be upgraded up to 6 points). The points can help to improve your copter. In 1v1, Tower Health and Shield is unavailable.

There are three informal upgrade assignments categorized in the Defly.io community, hybrid, builder, and shooter. Each of these builds have a bias towards a set of upgrades. Builders use max Build Distance, Tower Shield, and Tower Health. Shooters use max Bullet Speed, Bullet Range, and Reload Speed. Hybrids is a combination of skills and can be shooter heavy or, build heavy.

## Explanation of every skill

1. **Player Speed:** Higher levels increase your movement speed. This skill is good for dodging bullets, running away, chasing players, or moving around the map quickly.
2. **Bullet Speed:** How fast your bullets move. This is very important for fighting if you focus on using your guns because players can pretty easily dodge slow bullets.
3. **Bullet Range:** How far your bullets go before disappearing. Upgrading this helps with clearing towers and also helps you fight other players. Increasing distance also increases how long the bullet will stay active if it is bouncing around inside the enemy’s base, which increases the chances for a ricochet hit.
4. **Reload Speed:** Upgrade this skill in order to be able to shoot faster. It is very important for clearing enemy towers and fighting.
5. **Build Distance:** How far away from your helicopter you can build towers. At the maximum level, this allows you to stay inside your base and still build towers outside. You can build towers more quickly than you can move, but it is really only useful if you have already upgraded Tower Health and Shield.
6. **Tower Shield:** Higher shield levels will improve the duration of the shields. If such a shield is activated, the tower will become temporarily invincible. Tip: In most cases, it is better to maximize Tower Health before Tower Shield. In late 2022, Tower shield can now only be upgraded to 6 points instead of 8.
7. **Tower Health:** Upgrading this will lead to a higher number of bullets it takes to destroy your towers. This is one of the most important skills because it allows you to create strong bases that are hard to infiltrate. Your towers can be destroyed with a single bullet if Tower Health is at level 0 while it takes five bullets at level 8. Note that your towers only increase in HP every other level, so a level 4 and 5 tower **both** have 3 HP. Therefore, if you upgrade your tower health, it should always be an even number (otherwise you’re just wasting a point). Also note that the enemy gains more XP from destroying your towers if they have more HP.

## Types of helicopters

Even though you can upgrade anything you like, there are different types of helicopters. The most common ones are shown here.

### Hybrids

Since those types are not the only ways possible, there is an infinite amount of hybrid types. The most helpful ones are following:

**Superpower choices**

You will want to change superpowers depending on your upgrades. For example, it would be bad to have the Full Builder Hybrid type but still have dual fire. You want to amplify your best abilities. Dual fire goes with shooter, speed boost goes with shooter or builder, clone goes usually with shooter, flashbang can be both, and teleport is for shooter.

## Gallery

Old upgrade barUpgrade bar in 1v1Current upgrade bar