My Hero Academia United Survival drops you into fast top-down waves where you pick a hero, gather XP mid-run, and stack skill upgrades until the stage ends. It is a roguelite built around a three-character squad, so your early choices about who you main and where you spend materials shape how quickly your account grows. The goal in your first hours is simple. Lock in a strong starter, build one balanced team, and avoid spreading resources thin.
Quick answer: Finish the tutorial, claim your free SR ticket and pick Shoto Todoroki (Deku is the more forgiving pick if you prefer simple attacks), join an Agency right away, and pour every early upgrade into just three characters that cover damage, crowd control, and utility.
Pick your free SR starter
After the tutorial, you receive a free SR character selection ticket with three choices, each tied to a different summoning banner. The options are Izuku Midoriya (Deku), Shoto Todoroki, and Katsuki Bakugo. Whichever one you pick becomes an SR, and the other two arrive as N-rank cards.
All three are viable, but Shoto is the strongest all-round pick for a new player. His freeze effect controls crowds while still dealing damage, and his cooldowns tighten as you level his skills, which makes swarms far easier to handle early and mid game. Deku is the most beginner-friendly to actually pilot thanks to his straightforward projectile attacks and strong Synchro buffs, so he is a fair choice if you want a simpler learning curve. Bakugo is the weakest of the trio because his knockback overlaps with what Shoto already does, only without the freeze.
| Starter | Strength | Best for |
|---|---|---|
| Shoto Todoroki | Freeze crowd control plus solid AoE damage | Most players wanting the strongest overall start |
| Izuku Midoriya | Simple projectile attacks, strong Synchros | Newcomers who want the most forgiving kit |
| Katsuki Bakugo | Burst damage and knockback | Aggressive, close-range playstyles |
Is rerolling worth it?
No. Rerolling here is generally a waste of time. The guaranteed SR ticket gives you one of the three anchors for free, which is enough to start playing without grinding against low gacha odds. You raise a character’s rarity by collecting shards through pulls and duplicates, so patience matters more than chasing a perfect launch account.
Join an Agency immediately
Agencies work like guilds and hand out passive rewards and buffs that build up over time. The most valuable part is the Agency Trophies, which are worth enhancing every single day. As they climb toward their Level 30 cap, they raise your login rewards, HP recovery, attack speed, and more. Join one as soon as it becomes available so those bonuses start compounding early.
Build a balanced three-character squad
Do not just stack your three highest-rarity heroes and call it a team. A strong early squad covers three jobs at once. You want one character with strong area damage to clear packs of small enemies, one with crowd control to keep waves manageable, and one with single-target damage, healing, or useful utility for elites and bosses.
Check the Synchro menu as you unlock new characters. Certain combinations trigger team bonuses that improve stats like attack speed and recovery. Because of this, a lower-rarity character that completes a powerful Synchro can be worth more to your squad than a higher-rarity unit that fits nowhere. Elemental pairings also matter in combat, since chaining effects like a freeze into follow-up burst rewards you with better clear speed.
How to play each run
Movement decides most early deaths. Circle the outside of enemy groups instead of letting them box you in, and herd them in one direction so they bunch up. Once they cluster, drop your area attacks on the whole pack. Avoid constantly changing direction, because that scatters enemies across the screen and makes them harder to hit.
Hold your ultimate moves for the moments that matter. Save them for elite enemies, boss damage windows, or when a large wave is starting to overwhelm you. Do not fire them off on small mobs the instant they charge. The ultimate can be charged to 100% for a solo hit, or overcharged to 200% for a Team Plus Ultra attack that brings all three characters into a single combined strike.
Note: Skill upgrades reset at the end of each stage, so you rebuild your loadout every run. Commit to one set of upgrades during a run rather than spreading points across unrelated effects, and it will pay off far more.
How to upgrade your characters
Characters climb through rarities in a fixed order, and each step up raises the level cap and makes the hero noticeably stronger. Rarity increases require character shards, so expect to invest in your main team steadily rather than all at once. The progression runs SR, then SR Plus, UR, UR Plus, LR, and finally LR Plus, with the individual level cap reaching 100.
| System | Resource | What it improves |
|---|---|---|
| Rarity | Character shards | Higher level cap and overall power |
| Costumes | Gold | Extra combat perks |
| Training | Dumbbells | Base stats |
| Equipment | Slot upgrades | Stat boosts through slots, not single pieces |
| Collections | Series cards | Team-wide bonuses, even when unequipped once awakened |
Focus these resources on your main three characters first. Spreading upgrades across your whole roster leaves everyone underpowered and slows your progress hard. Trust rewards also help here, since simply using and leveling a hero grants growth materials that feed back into making that same hero stronger.
Daily habits that keep you progressing
A short daily routine keeps essential materials flowing. Clearing daily missions rewards 100 Hero Stones and advanced Heroics Textbooks, both of which are core to progression. Build these into a quick check-in each day.
- Complete daily and weekly missions.
- Enhance your Agency Trophies.
- Finish new Synchro collections as characters unlock.
- Claim your login bonus and any mailbox presents.
- Check the Select Shop, which refreshes twice per day, for useful materials.
My Hero Academia United Survival is free to play on iOS and Android. Get a starter locked in, keep your squad balanced around damage, control, and utility, and stick to one upgrade path per run. Do that and your first few hours will feel far less overwhelming.
