Guide to Training Survivors

Training increases a survivor's level, which increases both the Attack and Defense of that survivor.

To train a survivor, you sacrifice other survivors, give them serum, or use up some of the four types of training equipment (Conditioning Gear, Reference Manuals, Supplements, or Training Weapons).

Here is the basic strategy to most efficiently use up survivors and training equipment (see sections below for details as to why): Note: see the table of experience cost at the bottom of this page to help determine how much training equipment or serum is required to finish off training a survivor to max level
 * 1) First sacrifice survivors of the same type (melee for melee, ranged for range, specialization for specialization). The reason for this is you get more experience when sacrificing a survivor with the same type and sacrificing a survivor of a different type. By using them first, you maximize the amount of experience from them.
 * 2) Next sacrifice survivors of different types.
 * 3) Finally, use serum and training equipment. Generally, you should switch to using equipment and serum when the survivor is half way to maximum level (e.g., level 30 for an Epic survivor). However, this guideline depends on how many survivors you have. If you tend to buy a lot of crates, you'll have more survivors than training equipment, so switch from sacrificing survivors a bit later.

Sacrificing Survivors
The amount of experience (XP) received from sacrificing a survivor varies depending on the following: Note that you do not receive any additional XP by sacrificing a survivor that has been upgraded or trained survivor (that is, sacrificing a survivor that is above level 1). The game will warn you if you accidentally attempt to sacrific a trained survivor, but it will still allow you to do this.
 * Whether the survivor type (ranged, melee, or specialization) matches between the one being trained and the one being sacrificed. It is slightly higher if their type is the same. In other words, you should sacrifice ranged survivors to train a ranged survivor (and melee survivors to train a melee survivor, etc.). The rarity of a survivor also increase the amount.
 * The difference in rarity of the survivors. The more rare the survivor being sacrificed, the more experience it will give. For example, a common survivor might give 70XP, whereas an uncommon would give 80XP.
 * The level of the survivor that is being trained. The amount of XP received from the sacrificed survivor decreases as the level of the survivor being trained increases. To illustrate this, the following table shows an example of the level of the survivor being trained and the amount of XP received from those sacrificed. (Note that you will see different results based on the rarity and type of survivor.)

Using Training Equipment
There are four types of training equipment that can be found: Conditioning Gear, Reference Manuals, Supplements, or Training Weapons.

The amount of experience (XP) received when using this equipment is random, but seems to average around 39XP per item. Unllike sacrificing, the level of your survivor does not affect the amount of XP received. Because of this, you should use the equipment on high-level survivors (those that are about level 35 or higher).

Here are some examples of XP cost to train from a specific level to max level:


 * Legendary survivor from level 40 to 70 takes approximately 480 items


 * Epic survivor from level 30 to 60 takes approximately 360 items


 * Epic survivor from level 40 to 60 takes approximately 255 items

The amount can vary due to the randomness of the XP given.
 * Rare survivor from level 30 to 50 takes approximately 183 items

Using Serum
Serum gives a fixed amount of experience. Since serum is relatively rare, consider stockpiling it to use for training Epic and Legendary survivors since they require significantly more experience. The amount given for each type of serum is.

Experience Table
The following table shows the amount of experience required to get to the next level as well as the amount of experience to get to max level from the current level for each type of survivor.