Hero levels & ability points
Souls are your XP too: every level after the unlocks hands you one Ability Point, and pushing one ability to its 5-point tier is your real power spike.
The same souls you spend in the shop also raise your hero level. The early levels hand you your four abilities for free; after that each level is one Ability Point, which you pour into the 1 / 2 / 5 upgrade tiers — eight points to fully max a single ability.
Levels, points and the 1/2/5 ladder
Souls do double duty: the same souls you bank in the shop also raise your hero level. There are 36 levels — level 1 at 0 souls up to the cap at 40,000 — and the early thresholds are cheap (300 souls for level 2, 600 for level 3, 900 for level 4), so you climb fast in lane. Leveling pays out in two things. Unlocks: your first ability is free at level 1, and you open a new one every other level after that (levels 3, 5 and 7), so all four are available by level 7. An unlock costs no point — it just opens the ability so you can start dumping points into it, and you choose which one to open. Ability Points (AP): from level 2 onward each level hands you one AP, so by level 8 you have 4 points with your whole kit unlocked, and you keep banking one per level to the cap. Each ability then has three upgrade tiers costing 1, then 2, then 5 AP — eight points to fully max a single ability. The final 5-point tier is the big one: it usually transforms the ability (an extra charge, far more range or damage, a removed downside) rather than just nudging numbers. At max level you have exactly 32 AP, which is precisely enough to max all four abilities (4 × 8) — nothing wasted, nothing missing.
How to play it
Skill order is one of your biggest free wins, and most players bleed it by spreading points thin. Pick your one or two carry abilities and rush them: grab the 1- and 2-point tiers first (cheap, biggest percentage gain) and save the 5-point tier for whichever ability defines your hero. One fully-maxed ability beats four abilities sitting at tier 1. Open abilities in the order you'll actually press them — if your wave-clear or your escape is in the kit, take that free unlock early even if you won't pump points into it yet; there's no reason to leave a useful button locked. Don't sit on banked points either: an unspent AP is power you aren't using, so spend it the moment a tier is worth it. Read the enemy's level, not just their items — the number sits by their healthbar and on the scoreboard, and when an opponent crosses a breakpoint they were weak at a second ago, expect them to suddenly win the trade. The souls feeding all this come from everywhere (last-hits, denies, jungle camps — medium camps now spawn at 5:00 — and the reworked urn's soul bounty), so farming efficiently isn't just gold, it's levels and points. Your raw stat growth (HP, weapon and spirit damage) scales separately with souls; this card is only the ability-point half.
Power spikes: when you actually get strong
Your timings are dictated by AP, not the clock. The first real spike lands when one core ability hits its second tier in lane — your first upgrade is affordable at level 2 (1 AP), and the tier-2 upgrade by about level 6 (3 AP total), which is often when you start winning the lane. The next jump is your first fully-maxed ability: that needs 8 AP, which you bank around level 12, and the moment the 5-point tier comes online is a classic 'take a fight or an objective now' window because the ability stops being a poke and becomes a kill button. Track both spikes — if you know you go from harmless to lethal on a specific upgrade, force the fight right after you click it; if the enemy is one level from their spike, end it or back off before they get there. With base HP a touch lower this patch, hitting a damage breakpoint a few seconds before the other team is often the whole fight.
Raw dataidentity & API
identity
- id
- mechanic_ability_progression
- slug
- ability-progression
- category
- progression
- flowStage
- fighting
- aliases
- AP, ability points, 1/2/5, skill order, skill build, ability upgrade, max ability, hero level, leveling up, souls thresholds, level cap, power spike, skill points, talent points
- sourcePath
- manual:mechanics/ability-progression
- updatedAt
- 2026-06-06T00:00:00.000Z