Every hero in Wild Water World goes up to 25 stars, not 5. The hero screen draws five big stars, and each big star fills up in five steps, so "3 full stars" on screen is really 15★. Stars cost the hero's own Fragments, and they decide how many skills the hero has and how high those skills can go. Skills are then leveled separately with Skill Books.
Recruiting and starring up
- A hero you don't own yet is recruited with 10 of their Fragments. Heroes you could recruit right now are listed at the top of the hero list, ahead of the heroes you own.
- Each star after that costs more Fragments of the same hero. The cost is the same for every rarity: a Rare hero and an Exotic hero pay the same 1,100 Fragments to go from 0★ to 25★.
- On the Star tab you can turn on Auto Exchange. While it is on, your Hero Universal Fragments of that hero's rarity count toward the next star. While it is off they are ignored, even if the hero is one Fragment short.
- At 25★ the button changes to Max Stars.
| Star | Fragments for this star | Total from 0★ | Skill levels allowed |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1★–4★ | 1, 1, 2, 2 | 6 | skill 1 at Lv.1 |
| 5★ | 4 | 10 | skills 1–2, up to Lv.2 |
| 6★–9★ | 5, 5, 5, 10 | 35 | skills 1–2, up to Lv.2 |
| 10★ | 15 | 50 | skills 1–3, up to Lv.3 |
| 11★–14★ | 20 each | 130 | skills 1–3, up to Lv.3 |
| 15★ | 50 | 180 | skills 1–4, up to Lv.4 |
| 16★–19★ | 50 each | 380 | skills 1–4, up to Lv.4 |
| 20★ | 120 | 500 | skills 1–4, up to Lv.5 |
| 21★–25★ | 120 each | 1,100 | skills 1–4, up to Lv.5 |
Each hero's own page has the same table under Star-up Fragments.
Skills
A hero has four skill slots. Stars open the slots and also cap the level of every skill:
- Skill 1 is there from the start, but it stays at Lv.1 until the hero reaches 5★.
- Skill 2 opens at 5★, skill 3 at 10★ and skill 4 at 15★. Before that the slot shows Unlocks at 5-Star (or 10, 15).
- The level cap rises with the same milestones: Lv.2 at 5★, Lv.3 at 10★, Lv.4 at 15★, Lv.5 at 20★. So a hero at 19★ cannot take any skill past Lv.4, however many books you have.
Leveling a skill costs Skill Books of the hero's rarity: Rare, Epic, Legendary or Exotic Skill Books. All four slots cost the same:
| Skill level | Books for this level | Total from Lv.1 |
|---|---|---|
| Lv.2 | 10 | 10 |
| Lv.3 | 30 | 40 |
| Lv.4 | 90 | 130 |
| Lv.5 | 150 | 280 |
Example. You want Mia (Legendary) with all four skills at Lv.5. She needs 20★, which is 500 Mia Fragments from 0★. The books are 4 × 280 = 1,120 Legendary Skill Books. At 15★ (180 Fragments) the most you can do is all four skills at Lv.4, for 4 × 130 = 520 books.
Advance
After skill 1 reaches Lv.5, some heroes get an Advance button that upgrades skill 1 past Lv.5, from Tier 1 up to Tier 4. In the global version only Leon, River Dragon has it. Each step costs 1 Skill Advancement Stone and is locked to a season: Tier 2 needs Season 2, Tier 3 Season 3, Tier 4 Season 4.
Stars outside battle
Stars also raise a hero's bonus when you assign them to a building from the Command Center. The bonus is a base value for the hero's rarity plus a fixed amount per star. For example, a Legendary hero on a Forging Speedup post shows 226 + 82 per star, so 636 at 5★ and 2,276 at 25★. The Building Speedup posts are covered under Speeding up construction.
Exact formulas
- Fragments for star n = the *n*th row of the star table; the column the game reads depends on rarity, but all four columns hold the same numbers in version 1.3.4.
- Skill level cap for skill i at star s = the cap list for s (above); a skill whose slot is not in the list is locked.
- Skill Book cost for level L = 10 / 30 / 90 / 150 for L = 2 / 3 / 4 / 5, in the book of the hero's rarity.
- Assignment bonus = rarity base + rarity per-star × stars. Rarity order is Rare, Epic, Legendary, Exotic.
Notes
- Rarity does not change the Fragment cost. The game stores a separate cost column for each rarity, but in version 1.3.4 the four columns are identical. What rarity does change is which Skill Books and Universal Fragments the hero uses.
- Universal Fragments do nothing until Auto Exchange is on. The switch is per hero. With it off, the star bar only counts the hero's own Fragments.
- Opening a Universal Fragment from the Bag only lists heroes you already own. A hero missing from the list is not a bug; you have not recruited them yet.
- Fragments are still useful after 25★. Each of the 25 Exclusive Weapon stars costs more of the hero's Fragments (60 for the first, 2,020 for all 25) plus Exclusive Weapon Screws, and every one of them requires the hero at 25★. Exclusive Weapons open at player level 30, and in Season 1 only from day 15 of the world.
- Most red dots on the hero screen only light up for heroes in your Exploration lineup. Level, skill, gear and badge dots check that the hero is in that lineup; a hero who only sits in a World fleet gets no reminders.
- Unconfirmed: how much each star adds to HP, ATK and Skill Power. The Star tab's next-star preview is calculated server-side and the formula is not published, so this wiki does not list per-star stat gains.
- Unconfirmed: whether a newly recruited hero starts at 0★ or 1★. The star table starts at 1★ with a cost of 1 Fragment; if heroes arrive at 1★, the full climb is 1,099 Fragments instead of 1,100.