Part of the Heroes Series:
- Hero Gear and Tempest Arms: Molds, crafting and stats (You Are Here).
- Heroes Guide Hub: Affinity, generations and roles.
- Hero Fragments and Upgrade Priority: Finish heroes before you gear them.
- Chief Gear, Talents and Badges: The parallel system for your own character.
- Hero Appointment: The other account-wide hero layer.
Quick Answer
Two separate gear systems sit on your heroes, and people conflate them constantly.
| System | What it is | When it matters |
|---|---|---|
| Hero Gear | Standard equipment, unlocks at HQ 16. Heroes auto-equip it once the research is done | Mid game |
| Tempest Arms | Weaponised hero gear layered on top, amplifying hero attack and defence | Late game |
Hero Gear no longer involves crafting decisions. The game removed manual gear crafting; you research a piece and your heroes equip whatever suits them on their own. What you actually manage is the upgrade materials: Hero Gear Parts and Hero Gear Designs.
Tempest Arms is where the decisions are. Each piece costs 10 Tempest Arms Molds, and molds come from event tasks, the state event store, the crystal mine, and bundles. Targeted crafting exists, using Imperial Triumph, Devotion Duo or Rogues Assets Design Data, and it is the difference between getting the piece you need and getting a piece.
The honest priority note: this sits below finishing your core heroes and below chief badges. Gear on an unfinished hero is polish on an incomplete thing.
Overview
By the time this system opens, you have already met three other progression tracks with the word "gear" or "badge" in them, and it is genuinely confusing which does what.
Here's the separation that makes it stick. Chief gear is on you, the commander, and it applies broadly. Hero gear is on individual heroes and follows them into fights. Tempest Arms is a second, sharper layer on heroes, aimed at hero attack and defence specifically rather than at troop stats.
What you'll find is that the returns arrive in that order too. Chief badges beat chief gear, chief gear beats hero gear for most accounts, and Tempest Arms is the last thing worth touching. None of it beats having three finished heroes.
Hero Gear
It equips itself now
The single most useful thing to know: manual gear crafting was removed. You research a piece of hero gear, and from then on heroes equip the gear best suited to them automatically.
That change killed an entire category of optimisation and it was a mercy. There is no build-crafting decision to get wrong here, and any guide telling you to craft specific pieces for specific heroes is describing an older version of the game.
Hero gear becomes equippable at HQ 16, which is the same neighbourhood as several other systems opening at once. It is fine to ignore it until your HQ climb settles down.
The two materials
| Material | Role |
|---|---|
| Hero Gear Parts | The bulk upgrade currency |
| Hero Gear Designs | The gating material, far scarcer |
Parts come from a genuinely wide spread of activity: Daily Drop, Influencer Trap, Daily Intel, Infected Fiend rallies, the Reservoir Raid store, Reservoir League betting store, the Alliance Store, Alliance Showdown, Value Card milestones, first-time Explorer Trail completions, Survival of the Fittest, Plague Zones, Fortress Fight, Underground Shadow Exploration, and bundles.
Read that list as a checklist rather than a summary. Parts are not a bottleneck for an active account, because almost everything you already do pays them. Designs are the constraint, and they are far more concentrated in event ranking.
[!TIP] If you are gear-blocked, you are almost certainly Design-blocked rather than Parts-blocked. The answer is event placement, not grinding, and the events index shows which windows pay out.
Tempest Arms
The layer above, and the one worth planning for.
Tempest Arms are weaponised hero gear that amplify hero attack and defence. They sit on top of standard hero gear rather than replacing it, and they scale with rarity in the usual way.
Molds are the currency
Each piece of Tempest Arms costs 10 Tempest Arms Molds.
Molds come from:
- Event tasks, notably Survival Royale
- The state event store
- The crystal mine
- Bundles
Ten per piece is the number to plan around. It makes Tempest Arms a saving exercise rather than a drip, which in turn means it behaves like every other banked resource in this game: accumulate, then spend deliberately.
Targeted crafting is the whole skill
Left alone, crafting gives you a piece. With Imperial Triumph, Devotion Duo or Rogues Assets Design Data, you can aim it.
This matters because gear is troop-type specific, and the wrong type does nothing for you. A Hunter piece on an account running Infantry is a wasted ten molds.
[!WARNING] Do not craft untargeted while you have Design Data available and a type you actually need. Ten molds is a meaningful bank, and the type lottery is the one avoidable way to waste it.
What the stats look like
Tempest Arms stats are hero attack and final damage, split by troop type. A representative slice:
| Rarity | Piece | Effect |
|---|---|---|
| Epic | Blaster Supreme | Infantry hero attack +2.40%, Infantry hero final damage +3.00% |
| Epic | Steel Vortex | Rider hero attack +2.40%, Rider hero final damage +3.00% |
| Epic | Stern Reprimand | Hunter hero attack +2.40%, Hunter hero final damage +3.00% |
| Rare | Mech Scythe | Infantry hero attack +1.80%, Infantry hero final damage +2.25% |
Two things to take from that table.
The Epic-to-Rare gap is real but not enormous, roughly a third more on both lines. A full set of Rare pieces beats a scattered pair of Epics comfortably.
Every piece names a troop type. There is no generic Tempest Arms piece, which is the strongest argument in the game for specialising rather than running all three types as a free account.
Where This Sits in Your Priorities
Blunt ordering for an account deciding where effort goes:
- Finish three heroes. Gear multiplies a hero; it does not substitute for one.
- Chief badges, then chief gear. Broader application, cheaper entry.
- Hero gear, which mostly runs itself once researched.
- Tempest Arms, once you have a settled dominant troop type and molds to bank.
- Genetic Recombination, on the one hero you have genuinely finished.
The mistake worth naming: chasing Tempest Arms while your rally lead is still short of its skill caps. The rally lead's skills apply to every joiner's troops. A few per cent of hero attack does not.
F2P vs Spender
F2P accounts should treat hero gear as free progress, since Parts arrive from activity you were doing anyway, and treat Tempest Arms as a long bank. Pick one troop type, save molds until you can target the piece you need, and never craft blind. Skip it entirely until your core roster is genuinely finished; nothing here rescues an under-built account.
Spending accounts can buy molds through bundles and reach full sets much faster, and this is one of the systems where money converts cleanly into combat stats rather than into time. Even so, the targeting rule holds: the Design Data matters more than the mold count, because an untargeted set spread across three troop types under-performs a focused Rare set.
Common Mistakes
Confusing hero gear with chief gear. Different systems, different materials. Fix: chief gear is on you, hero gear is on heroes.
Looking for the gear crafting menu. It was removed; gear auto-equips after research. Fix: manage materials, not builds.
Crafting Tempest Arms untargeted. Ten molds for a type you don't run. Fix: save Design Data and aim it.
Spreading Tempest Arms across three troop types. Every piece is type-specific. Fix: specialise.
Gearing before finishing heroes. Polish on something incomplete. Fix: fragments first.
Grinding for Parts. They are rarely the constraint. Fix: chase Designs through event ranking.
Related Progression
Before exchanging excess parts or designs, reserve the materials for your next planned equipment steps. The Recycling Center guide explains eligibility, shared daily limits and why a surplus of one material may still be needed once another shortage is filled.
FAQ
What are Tempest Arms in State of Survival? Weaponised hero gear that amplifies hero attack and defence, layered on top of standard hero gear. Each piece costs 10 Tempest Arms Molds to craft.
How do I get Tempest Arms Molds? Event tasks such as Survival Royale, the state event store, the crystal mine, and bundles. Ten molds per piece, so treat them as something to bank rather than spend as they arrive.
What is targeted crafting? Crafting aimed at a specific piece using Imperial Triumph, Devotion Duo or Rogues Assets Design Data. Since every piece is troop-type specific, targeting is what stops you wasting molds on a type you don't field.
When does hero gear unlock? It becomes equippable at HQ 16, once you have researched the gear.
How do I craft hero gear? You don't. Manual gear crafting was removed, and heroes now equip the gear best suited to them automatically once the research is complete.
What are Hero Gear Parts and Designs? Parts are the bulk upgrade material and come from a wide spread of daily and event activity. Designs are far scarcer and are usually what actually blocks you.
Is Tempest Arms worth it for free-to-play? Eventually, and only after your core heroes are finished. Bank molds, pick one troop type, and never craft blind.
Does Tempest Arms buff my troops? It buffs hero attack and final damage by troop type, which is a different line from the troop stats that research and chief gear raise.
Key Takeaways
- Two systems: Hero Gear (auto-equips from HQ 16) and Tempest Arms on top of it.
- Gear crafting was removed. Heroes equip suitable gear themselves after research.
- Hero Gear Parts are common; Designs are the real constraint.
- Each Tempest Arms piece costs 10 Molds, from event tasks, the state event store, the crystal mine and bundles.
- Target your crafting with Imperial Triumph, Devotion Duo or Rogues Assets Design Data.
- Every Tempest Arms piece is troop-type specific. Specialise or waste molds.
- Epic pieces run about +2.40% hero attack and +3.00% final damage; Rare about +1.80% / +2.25%.
- Finish your heroes first. Gear multiplies a hero and cannot replace one.