Verdict
A season-aware ranking that weights how heroes hold up over time, not just their kit on launch day — cross-referenced across several trackers rather than taken from a single source.
The hero pool in Sea of Conquest: Pirate War has grown large enough that a plain "best heroes" list stops being useful — what matters now is how a hero holds up a season or two after launch, not just what their kit looks like on the day they're released. This ranking leans on that distinction instead of a single static snapshot.
Methodology
Most publicly available Sea of Conquest tier lists rank heroes by raw kit strength in isolation, frozen at whatever point the page was last written — some of the oldest still in circulation haven't been touched since April 2024, well before several seasons of SP and collaboration heroes arrived. This ranking instead cross-references a season-tracked source (AllClash, which revisits its list every season rather than leaving it static) against an investment-focused breakdown (Packsify) and the broader community consensus from BlueStacks, MuMu Player, GamingOnPhone, and Pocket Gamer, then flags explicitly where those sources land in different places. Heroes are grouped by role (Captain, First Mate, Gunner) and by damage archetype (Artillery, Cutthroat, Drowning, Blaze, Strategic) rather than rarity alone, since a Legendary from two seasons ago and a fresh SP release aren't actually competing for the same roster slot.
The ranking
| Hero | Role | Rarity | Tier | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Kenshiro | Captain | SP (collab) | S | Percentage-based damage mitigation plus reflection on every hit taken — pushed to S+ by community trackers almost immediately after launch |
| Mamiya | Cutthroat | SP (collab) | S | The second half of the Fist of the North Star collab event; strong Cutthroat anchor once properly invested |
| Long John Silver | Artillery | SP/Legendary | S | Current reference Artillery damage dealer, with debuff scaling that rewards a full build |
| Cecilia Schafer | Support | SP/Epic | S | Healing, buffing and rage-drain in one kit — the go-to fleet support right now |
| Cordelia | Support | Legendary | S | The one support that stays relevant across seasons rather than getting replaced by the next SP release |
| Kalomira | Strategic | SP | S | Snowballing damage that scales hard on strategic-ship comps |
| Mari Itxaso | Drowning | SP | S | The current Drowning-archetype anchor |
| Chien | Captain | Legendary | S | Damage-mitigation pillar for flagship-style formations |
| Oscar | Gunner | Epic | A | Consistently strong across nearly every source checked, old and new — amplifies artillery/random-hit damage, pairs well with Sharky |
| Cursed Ed | Jack of all trades | Epic | A | Flexible enough to slot into more than one formation type |
| Will | First Mate | Epic | A | Solid, unremarkable — a safe mid-progression pick |
| Madame Lulu | First Mate | Epic | A | Same bracket as Will; reliable without being a build-around pick |
| Luna | Gunner | Legendary | A | Still a legitimate Artillery-comp Gunner, often paired directly with Sharky in community formation guides |
| Jim Hawkins | — | — | A | Listed as S by AllClash's season tracking; placed A here pending more cross-source confirmation, but worth investing in |
| Sharky | First Mate | Legendary | S or C+, source-dependent | See the dedicated section below — this is the one hero where the trackers genuinely disagree |
| Griffin | Captain | Legendary | B | A launch-roster carry; Packsify's investment guide explicitly moves him to its "stop investing" list as newer Captains have overtaken him |
| Bones | — | Legendary | B | Same story as Griffin — strong at launch, outpaced since |
| Eileen | First Mate | Epic | B | Still listed S on some older unrefreshed guides, but newer SP First Mates have closed the gap enough that it's no longer a clear pick |
| Henry Hell | Jack of all trades | Rare | B | Fine for early-game bridging, nothing more |
| Ned | Gunner | Epic | B | Outclassed by Oscar and Luna in the same role |
| Zola | Captain | Rare | B | Early-game only |
| Betty | — | — | C | Low-utility, quickly surpassed by rarer options |
| Jango | — | — | C | Same bracket as Betty |
| Armstrong | — | — | C | Same bracket as Betty |
Sharky: the one hero where the trackers can't agree
Sharky is the clearest case of how differently "current" tier lists treat the same hero. BlueStacks, MuMu Player, GamingOnPhone, and Pocket Gamer all still list him in S-tier, pointing at Master Blaster's 540% Attack spread across five random hits as best-in-class for a First Mate. AllClash's season-by-season tracking tells a different story: Sharky launched at A+, held A through the second and third seasons, slipped to B, and now sits at C+ — grouped with Griffin and Bones as a launch-era carry that newer Firepower releases have overtaken. Packsify's investment-focused guide agrees with AllClash's read, listing Sharky directly in its "retirement" section alongside those same two heroes.
Both pictures are true at once, just measuring different things. The sites still showing S-tier are largely static pages that haven't been revisited since Sharky was new; the season-tracked and investment-focused sources are the ones actually capturing the power-creep curve. In practice: Sharky remains a cheap, functional Legendary that hits hard on paper and is worth running through early-to-mid progression, but he's not the best-in-slot First Mate anymore once SP and collab heroes enter a roster. The full breakdown of his kit, formation pairings, and the self-stun tradeoff that defines how he plays is covered in our Sharky build guide.
What changed this patch
The biggest recent shakeup is the Fist of the North Star collaboration, which added Kenshiro as the Season 39 SP hero in mid-August 2026, followed several weeks later by Mamiya. Kenshiro's defensive kit — scaling damage mitigation plus reflection whenever his ship takes a hit — pushed him to S+ in community rankings almost immediately, and Mamiya's arrival gave captains a second anime-lead SP hero to build around in the same event window. That collab event is the clearest driver behind why several launch-roster Legendaries (Griffin, Sharky, Bones) keep sliding further down season-tracked lists: every new SP or collab wave adds another hero competing for the same small number of top-formation slots, and the oldest Legendaries are the ones getting squeezed out first.
Why some heroes underperform
The heroes sitting in B and C tier here aren't badly designed, they're just outpaced. Griffin, Bones, and (per the season-tracked view) Sharky were genuinely strong at launch — their numbers haven't gotten worse, the roster around them has simply gotten stronger. The C-tier heroes (Betty, Jango, Armstrong) were never meant to anchor an end-game formation in the first place; they're early-game bridging picks that get replaced the moment a player pulls almost anything rarer. None of that makes them worthless, it just means a maxed, end-game-focused roster shouldn't be built around them.
Pros
- Cross-references season-tracked data instead of a single static snapshot
- Groups heroes by role and archetype, not just rarity
- Flags exactly where sources disagree instead of hiding it
Cons
- The SP/collab top tier changes fast and needs rechecking every season
Is this tier list current for the latest season?
Yes — it's cross-referenced against AllClash's season-tracked rankings (updated through the current season) rather than a single static page, and specifically flags the Sharky entry where sources genuinely disagree rather than just picking one and moving on.
Should I pull for SP heroes like Kenshiro and Mamiya right away?
Only if your account already has a complete core formation. Packsify's investment-focused breakdown is explicit that SP and collab heroes underperform at low star ranks, so pulling one without the roster to actually level it up usually isn't worth prioritizing over finishing an existing core.
Is Sharky still worth using if I already have him built?
Yes, especially for early-to-mid progression. He's not the top-tier First Mate he once was on season-tracked trackers, but 540% Attack spread across five hits is still real damage, and he's cheap to keep running rather than cheap to replace. The Sharky build guide covers the formation pairings that get the most out of him today.
End-game tester, 800+ hours in-game, Diamond rank. Every build is tested under real conditions before publishing. Specializes in min-maxing across genres — MMO tank and healer rotations, ARPG and gacha stat optimization, hero-shooter team comps — with a particular focus on how a meta actually shifts patch to patch, not just what topped the chart last season. Cross-checks every ranking against community consensus before calling anything S-tier.
