Quick answer
Do not promote Mason just because the button appears. First decide whether you want Mason as a useful UR now, whether you have enough shards to rebuild him after the reset, and whether the timing helps your VS Hero Day scoring.
Current first-party promotion rules
Current client rules (, ) confirm:
- Mason must be 5-star SSR.
- There is no hero-level requirement for promotion.
- Hero level is retained.
- Star rank resets to 3-star UR.
- Skill levels reset to Lv1.
- Skill Medals invested into the SSR version are returned.
- Wall of Honor shards are returned as Mason-specific hero shards.
- Shards originally used to raise the SSR hero from 0→5 stars are not returned.
- The promoted UR can be raised with Mason-specific shards or SSR Universal Hero Shards.
- UR star advancement uses double the shard cost of the original SSR progression.
This is now high-confidence first-party guidance and should replace softer community-only wording.
Why Wall 160 matters
Wall 160 is not required to promote.
The maintained current promotion math returns 10 Mason shards per Wall level. At Wall 160:
160 × 10 = 1,600 Mason shards
Maintained current event guidance identifies 1,600 shards as the amount needed to rebuild promoted Mason from 3-star UR back to 5-star.
Player-facing explanation:
Wall 160 is the clean preparation target because it gives enough refunded Mason shards to immediately rebuild 3★ UR Mason to 5★ under the current promotion math.
If a player promotes below that point, promotion still works — they simply may not have enough refunded shards to restore him immediately.
New Wall of Honor breakpoint warning
The current client also confirms that Honor Levels 50 / 100 / 150 / 200 provide additional attributes to all heroes of that troop type.
Promotion removes the SSR Wall and refunds its shards.
Strategic implication: before promoting Mason, check whether his Wall currently supplies one of those troop-wide milestone bonuses. Promotion may temporarily remove that Tank-wide breakpoint until the returned shards are reassigned/rebuilt.
Treat this as a planning warning, not a claim that promotion is bad.
When should I promote?
Good reasons to promote now
- Mason is still part of the player's meaningful Tank lineup.
- The player can rebuild him to a useful star level immediately.
- The player wants the VS Hero Day shard/skill-medal scoring opportunity.
- The player understands that the old SSR Wall bonus disappears when promoted.
Good reasons to wait
- Mason is already benched behind a stronger UR Tank lineup.
- Rebuilding him would consume resources better spent elsewhere.
- Current Wall milestone bonuses matter more to the player's Tank team than the immediate UR conversion.
- Waiting for a better VS scoring day provides more account value.
VS Hero Day optimization
Maintained current guidance supports the familiar double-use strategy:
- Invest eligible Mason shards into Wall of Honor.
- Invest Skill Medals into Mason.
- Promote Mason.
- Receive eligible Wall shards and Skill Medals back.
- Reuse the returned resources for UR rebuilding / other hero investment.
Treat this as a scoring optimization, not a promotion requirement.
Mason common mistakes
- Saying Mason must be Hero Lv160. He does not.
- Saying Wall 160 is required to press Promote. It is not.
- Promoting without planning for the 3-star reset.
- Forgetting that UR star advancement costs more.
- Ignoring the temporary loss of an important Wall of Honor troop-wide breakpoint.
- Treating “UR” as automatically more valuable than every alternative use of the same shards.
