Hero Unlock Guide: Who Is Free From the Story, Who Costs a Ticket

The 19-hero roster is split between heroes who join through story progress and heroes who must be obtained from the exchange menu. The game's own announcement materials describe the roster as a fixed set with no gacha draws, and the community consistently documents a story path plus a ticket-based exchange path. The exact list differs by patch, so the reliable way to check a specific hero is the unlock menu in the game and the hero's page in the hero database /heroes, which records the current roster.

The exchange ticket is the scarce resource. Spending it on a hero the story would have handed you is the most common waste reported by the community, and the second most common is spending it on a hero with no chain in your current team. Both mistakes are avoidable with the same two checks: confirm the source, then confirm the role.

Before using any ticket, find out whether the target hero appears in the story path. The quest database /quests lists character quests by category, and the roster you have already unlocked is visible in the hero database /heroes and the game's own hero screen. If a hero can come from both paths, the story path is the free one, so the ticket should wait.

When the source is unclear, the safe order is: continue the story until the roster stops growing, then spend tickets on the remaining gap. The community's reports of "wasted" tickets almost always involve spending before the story path was finished. Waiting a chapter costs nothing; a misspent ticket is gone.

The roster question is a team question. Identify the weakest slot in your current rotation—missing opener status, a connector with only one edge, or a finisher that cannot consume what the team applies—then look for a ticket hero that fills exactly that direction. The team builder /team-build shows which edges are broken, and the hero database /heroes shows every hero's apply and consume sets, so the match is checkable before the purchase.

Rarity should not drive the choice. A hero with a high grade but a status set that duplicates what you already have adds less than a lower-grade hero that opens a new status family. The status coverage of the current roster is uneven—Air, Down, and Stun have several applicants, while Poison, Fire, and Ice have fewer—so a ticket that adds coverage to a rare status is usually the better buy.

After choosing a candidate, verify the chain in the team builder /team-build with the exact heroes you own, and count the cost to make the chain work: the skill level and ascension steps the Signal needs, plus the materials they consume. A ticket hero whose chain needs an unaffordable unlock is a ticket spent on a placeholder. The material planner /material-planner turns the chain's requirements into a countable plan.

If the chain only works with an expensive build, decide whether the ticket is worth a placeholder today or whether waiting for a different unlock is cheaper. The comparison belongs in the build planner /build-planner, where the same hero can be evaluated with the equipment and Karma you actually have.

The roster changes with patches and story chapters, and a hero that is story-free today can be part of a new route tomorrow. Keep the ticket banked until two conditions are both true: the story path has stopped growing, and a specific team is blocked by a missing hero. At that point the ticket has a concrete job. The quest database /quests shows what the story still has ahead, and the team builder /team-build shows what the team still needs, so the decision has a date instead of a mood.

Track the ticket like a currency, because the community's most expensive mistake is spending it on impulse. Note when the ticket was obtained and which heroes the current team is missing, then re-check the note after each story chapter instead of carrying the decision in memory. The hero database /heroes records the current roster and its roles, and the item database /items shows what an exchange purchase actually costs, so the note stays grounded in the current version rather than in launch-week advice.