Heroes

Heroes are an essential part of Hero Wars because they are needed for nearly all game modes.
By default, all Heroes are summoned at Level 1, Promotion Rank White, and the lowest Evolution Rank (depending on the Hero).
These three major indicators of the Hero's power can be found on the Hero's Avatar:

* The Level is found at the top
* The Promotion Rank is indicated by the border type and colour (an overview of all borders is found here)
* The Evolution Rank is at the bottom, represented by stars

To level up a Hero, he needs to earn enough Experience through the Campaign or by receiving EXP Potions.
Each level grants a stats bonus depending on the current Evolution Rank.
If the Hero is equipped enough Items he can be promoted, increasing his Promotion Rank and granting him a small stats bonus.
The Evolution Rank can be increased by collecting Hero Soul Stones.

Besides their Equipment, Heroes can be improved by Skins, Glyphs, Gift of the Elements, Artifacts, Ascension, and Pet Patronage.

## Skills

Each Hero has 4 different skills:

* White - Unlocked from the start
* Green - Unlocked with Promotion Rank Green
* Blue - Unlocked with Promotion Rank Blue
* Violet - Unlocked with Promotion Rank Violet

By default, the Hero uses their skills automatically between basic attacks except for the active part of their white skill that can be activated by collected enough Energy in Battle.
The other skills, with active components, have a skill timeout which determines the time between each usage.

## Roles

Heroes have different roles in a team and some heroes have more than one role. Currently there are 7 roles:

* **Tank** - a Tank's primary function is to fight in the front line and absorbing damage to protect the other heroes in the players team
* **Warrior** - a Warrior's primary function is dealing melee damage to the opposing team
* **Marksman** - a Marksman's primary function is to deal damage to the opposing team by using range projectiles
* **Support** - a Support's function is to support the players team with different protective skills like barriers, shields, removing debuffs etc
* **Control** - a Control's function is to control units from the opposing team with different skills like paralyzing, putting to sleep, stunning, silencing, pulling enemies towards the front line etc.
* **Mage** - a Mage's primary function is to attack the opposing team with range magic attacks
* **Healer** - a Healer's primary function is to heal the other heroes in the players team

## Factions and Specials

In the mobile version of the game all Heroes are divided into factions (before called Special). If Heroes of the same faction are used together some of their skills are enhanced. Currently there are 6 factions:

* Way of Chaos
* Way of Eternity
* Way of Honor
* Way of Mystery
* Way of Nature
* Way of Progress

In browser this is called Special but only a limited number of Heroes have a special. Currently there are 5 specials:

* Blessed
* Engineer
* Fire Herald
* Grove Keeper
* Undead

## Order

Lower-numbered Heroes in Order Rank will always stand in front of higher-numbered Heroes at the very beginning of a battle and in general throughout the duration of the entire battle, however, some Heroes may change their position (and/or direction) due to the effects of certain skills (either their own or the enemy's).

### Browser

Polaris is currently only available in the browser version and not in the mobile version of the game.

### Mobile

The following heroes are currently only available in the mobile version and not in the browser version of the game: Cascade, Octavia, Oya and Xe'Sha.

## History and Introduction

### Browser

The following information and dates are based on the actual game files, however, the games itself was officially released on 23 March 2016 (instead of 1 March 2016).

All dates are listed in "yyyy-mm-dd" format.