Viking Rise: How to Upgrade and Recruit Heroes Properly

Our guide includes all you need to know about heroes in Viking Rise, including talents, specialties, star levels, skills, and how to level them up

Viking Rise hero guide, how to get and upgrade heroes
Image via IGG / Edited by Medievalfun

Your heroes in Viking Rise have a direct impact on your success. They are the leaders of your troops and each hero has his own specialty, skills, and talent, which can help you to gain victory in battles.

But if you’ve just started playing Viking Rise, you might be wondering what the different components are and how they work. In this Viking Rise hero guide, we’ll discuss everything you need to know about heroes, including skills, talents, star levels, level-up strategies, and more.

Table of Contents:

The Hero Details page

The hero details page is where you can find out everything you need about your heroes, and eventually help you pick the best Viking Rise heroes for your strategy.

You can access this page by tapping the helm icon on the bottom-right side of the screen. At the top of this page, you will find a list of all the heroes you have collected and their levels. The little user icon at the very top of this page actually displays your total number of summoned heroes. Next to this little icon, you can sort all the heroes either by Grade, Star Level, Level, Might, or Name.

Below your summoned heroes, you can also have a preview of those you did not yet collect, and the number of shards you have collected for each of them. To manage a hero, tap one from the list and click the “Details” arrow on the right side of the screen.

From top to bottom, here are the details you can find on the hero details page:

The 3 ability labels

The first 3 labels at the top-right side of this page, represent the type of hero. The first label will inform you of the type of troops the hero performs best with. This can be Infantry, Archer, Pikeman, Porter, and Leader which performs great no matter the type of troops.

The Hero Details page with the 3 hero ability labels, squad capacity, specialty, talent and skills

The second label will tell you the type of activity the hero is best for. This can be either PvP (good for battles against other players), Gather (good at resource gathering), Jungler (best for dealing with Niflungs other neutral units on the map), and Polymath (good at all three types of activities).

The third label shows the hero’s role during battles. Hero roles can be either Basic Attacker, Counterattacks, Skills (the hero excels at using skills to deal damage), Defence (good at performing defensive tactics), or Support (the hero can improve the combat capabilities of himself or his allies).

The Star Level

To increase the Star level of your hero, you will first need to collect at least 15 hero shards for an epic or legendary hero, or 10 hero shards for a rare hero. You will also need to level up the hero to at least level 10. This will allow you to unlock the Talent Upgrade tree, and upgrade its talent to level 1. Only then, you will be able to upgrade the Star Level of your hero for the first time. These requirements will increase for each additional Star Level upgrade you want to perform.

Hero level bar

This bar will show you the experience points progress for the current level of your hero. Here you can level up your hero by tapping the green plus icon, which will take you to a page where you can use Hero EXP items.

Squad Capacity

This number displays how many troops can this hero lead. A higher number here means more troops and a greater chance of achieving victory in battle. This number depends on the level of your hero, the higher the level the more troops can be led.

Specialty

Same as with workers, Viking Rise heroes have also specialties. All heroes have quality grades, and these are D, C, B, A, and S, the latter being the best grade. These grades are assigned to 3 main categories Agriculture, Commerce, and Security, where the highest grade in any of these 3 categories will be chosen automatically and will determine the specialty of the hero.

These quality grades can be improved by unlocking the hero’s Awakening skill (more on this below).


Hero Talent

hero talent upgrades tree for a legendary hero in Viking Rise

The Hero Talent tab, visible at the very bottom of the hero details page, allows you to unlock and increase the Hero Talent’s level. For this, you will first need to upgrade the hero to level 10. After this, you can upgrade the Talent tree upgrades by using hero shards.

However, the higher the upgrade is placed, the more hero shards will consume, and will also require a certain star level to be upgraded to have access to it.

Hero Skills

Each hero in Viking Rise has 5 skills, and each skill can be upgraded up to level 10. Skills can be upgraded by using Skill Experience items, or Skill Shards.

upgrading legendary hero skills

Another good way to obtain Skill Experience items or Skill Shards is by unlocking the Skill Summon feature on the Hall of Valor building. For that, you need to upgrade any hero to level 20.

Summoning Skills requires Blessed Soulstones, which can be obtained from events such as the Conquer the Island (the third tab on the 5th day, named “Consume Speedup”). Blessed Soulstones can also be obtained by defeating Niflung Leaders in rallies, or from Prestige Level Rewards by completing Bounty quests on the Staging Post map.


How to level up heroes

Viking Rise heroes can be leveled up to level 60. The more you level up your heroes, the more powerful they become, and the more troops they can lead, unlocking more powerful star levels and talent upgrades. You can level up a hero by:

Using Hero EXP items

Using Hero EXP items to increase hero level
Using Hero EXP items

Heroes can be leveled up in various ways. The most common way is to use Hero EXP items. These can be obtained from events such as Distant Voyage, or the Law of the Jungle. They can also be purchased from the Glory Shop in the Honey Tavern building by spending Glory Medals (also obtainable in the Law of the Jungle event).

Other ways to obtain Hero EXP items include the Prosperity Shop (inside the Honey Tavern building) by increasing the Prosperity level and scouting Niflung Camps. To investigate camps, tap the Camp Report icon located next to the mail icon and in the first tab you will have a series of Niflung Camp missions. Tap the Investigate button and it will lead you to a camp location where you can start the mission.

Defeating Niflungs

Niflungs are the barbarian hoards visible all over the kingdom map. They have levels from 1 to 14, and they drop hero experience when defeated. Make sure to defeat as many Niflungs as possible to level up your heroes quickly and easily.

Similarly, you can attack Niflung Leaders, a more powerful enemy that can only be attacked through a rally with your Tribe allies.

Training heroes in the Squad Base

Training heroes in the Squad Base in Viking Rise medieval mobile game

Training heroes in the Squad Base is another good way to level up your heroes. Once you have built the Squad Base, you start by having one slot to which you can assign a hero to gain experience passively every day. Assigning a hero here, will not interfere with other activities, meaning it won’t be locked to this building or make it unavailable.

There are 5 slots available so you can have 5 heroes assigned for training. The second slot requires upgrading the Squad Base to level 6. The other 3 slots also require levels 11, 16, and 21. The training duration and the experience gained per hour for each hero are determined by the level of the Squad Base building. The higher the level of your Squad Base, the faster and more experience your heroes can gain.

training session completed for the assigned hero, and the amount of accumulated experience
Accumulated Experience in a training session

There is also a training speedup bonus that can be unlocked and increased after upgrading the Squad Base to at least level 10. The bonus for this level is 0.25%, but it can be increased up to 5% if the Squad Base is upgraded to level 25. Upgrading this building, besides the required amount of resources, you will also need some special items, called Moster Spirit.

Once a training session is complete, a book icon appears on the dummy training area, where you need to tap it so that your heroes can gain the accumulated experience. You can also obtain the accumulated experience in the Squad Base hero slots view, as you see in the above screenshot.


Ways to obtain heroes in Viking Rise

Viking Rise heroes can be obtained from a variety of sources, the most common being:

Using Oracle Soulstones in the Hall of Valor

Hall of Valor Vikings Rise

Oracle Soulstones can be obtained through various methods, such as:

Chronicles Campaign: this campaign includes 24 chapters and most of these chapters include 3 types of quests, Solo Quests, where you can complete them individually, Tribe Quests, where you must complete them with your Tribe members, and Kingdom Quests, which apply to all players of the same Kingdom/server.

Events such as Conquer the Island require completing various quests within 5 days. Some of these quests are quite easy to complete and include a few Oracle Soulstones as a reward.

Collecting Daily Pack Keys

The Daily Pack tab allows you to buy different packs that include Viking Rise Gems, speedups, Hero Exp, some special keys, and shards for the legendary hero, Laird. At the top of this page, you will find a progress bar that includes an S1 legendary hero as a reward, once you collect 15 keys. These keys can also be obtained by claiming the free reward once every 8.30 hours, visible below the progress bar.

Daily Pack hero shards keys

To access the Daily Pack page, tap the First Recharge icon next to the events slider at the top of your screen. Next, tap the Accumulation button on the left side, and tap the “Unlock Rewards” button at the bottom of the screen. This will take you to the Mall page, where you can access the Daily Pack by tapping the tab with the same name, on the left-side menu.

Collecting Hero Shards

Hero Shards can be collected from multiple sources in Viking Rise. This includes events, quests, or defeating Niflung Vanguards in Bounty challenges. Once you have 10 Shards for the same hero, that hero can be summoned in the Hall of Valor.

Increasing the Prestige Level

The Prestige level inside the Staging Post is also a great way to get amazing rewards, including Viking Rise heroes. The Prestige level can be increased by completing Bounty encounters visible on the Staging Post map. These rewards can be claimed after reaching each level, by tapping the chest visible in the bottom-right corner, which also displays the Prestige level.

The first hero you can receive is the Wooder, an epic hero, who requires Prestige level 5. The second hero is Yulmi, a legendary hero who can be obtained after reaching Prestige level 15. The third and last hero that can be obtained is Varka, also a legendary hero, and requires Prestige level 25 to be collected.

Final Thoughts

This concludes our Viking Rise hero guide. We hope this guide has helped you understand the various ways to upgrade your heroes and how they can help you succeed in battle. Don’t forget to upgrade them regularly but focus on a few good ones instead of spreading your resources across multiple characters.

Strategy
Cosmin
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Cosmin is a passionate blogger and web designer with a keen interest in medieval-themed entertainment - whether it's playing medieval strategy games, watching movies, or reading books about that time period. This led him to create Medievalfun.