Bug Heroes Survival Guide and Strategies [SPOILERS]

Click here to jump to every number of Bug Heroes: enemy damage, ability damage, health, armor and more!

Organization​

• Introduction and Organization
• Ant Intro and Abilities
• Spider Intro
• End of post 1, beginning of post 2
• Spider Abilities
• Beetle Intro and Abilities
• End of post 2, beginning of post 3
• Enemy Bugs
• Strategies
• Maps
• End of post 3, beginning of post 4
• Assorted
• Future Updates

Sections that are currently being revised or expanded are marked in red.

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Dev Description:
One of the few remaining ants not a slave, Ant is an engineer and ranged specialist, using advanced technology and gadgets to set up defenses or fire away at long range. He relies on his skills and equipment perhaps more then the other heroes, and like Spider, can easily be overwhelmed if not managed carefully. While the other two heroes rely on getting up close and personal, ant has a slightly zoomed out perspective and a rapid fire machine gun. While he is weaker then either of the other two heroes in the beginning, he arguably becomes the strongest once decked out with some of his equipment and abilities. He has a lot of unique gadgets like a teleporter, proximity mines, an automated shoulder turret which independently fires at nearby enemies, and lots of other cool stuff.

My Description:
Ant is the weakest ranged character, but the most balanced and with the best support abilities. He is slow to take down large groups and like the other ranged characters is easily overwhelmed by lots of fleas. His starting weapon is a rifle, which can be upgraded to a machine gun. This is recommended; in the beginning of the game, it is important to stockpile food and not damage your heroes, and staying far away from the danger is a good way to keep safe. The final upgrade, a minigun, is difficult to aim and causes much lag on second generation devices. It is rarely woth it as it does relatively little damage compared to other main weapons. Ant is still useful for pushing back enemies with his lucky shot skill, which should be upgraded first, along with speed.

Ant Abilities​

Life Support is one of Ant's important ability. It costs 800 dollars, has a fairly long recharge time, and improves the health of all your heroes by fifty. It is the best way to improve your heroes health without eating food. I use life support maybe five or ten times in a game, which is saving me 750-1500 food. +50 Health to all heroes. 800. 100.

Ant can equip a shoulder turret for 500 dollars. It lasts for about a minute, recharges quickly, and has limited range. It doesn't do much damage to enemies, and is a more a luxury than a necessity. Recommended for beginners, though, as it is usable in many situations and doesn't require any skill. 10 DPS. 700. 40.

Porta turrets are portable machine guns that you can purchase for 600 dollars. They last for two minutes each and take one minute to respawn, so you can have two on screen at any time. On early rounds, placing two at a "choke hold" (wherever the map is tightest) and firing from far way with Ant can easily stop all enemies. Porta turrets are especially helpful in Coliseum mode, when you can have an extra set of weapons killing bugs. 20 DPS for 120 seconds. 600. 60.

Better base guns is Ant's most powerful abilities, especially in higher rounds, and one of the strongest in the game. It drastically increases the strength of all porta turrets, termite turrets and base guns, which can be the difference between life or death. Best used during the peak of pure defense waves. 2X damage, 4X range. 800. 120.

Repulser waves push back enemies and divert bullets. They are definitely a platypus good upgrade and can easily slow down lots of enemies, while still staying safe. Shockwaves for Beetle is more useful as the diameter of Ant's repulsar waves is very small. A snail or vampire bug could easily attack Ant even with Repulsar waves. Minimal. 500. 40.

Ant hole allows you to create an ant hole that can instantly transport any hero back to base. They have a very quick recharge time and last for very long. Ant holes are useful when at the far end of a map and you want to get back to base quickly. Be sure not to place ant holes in places where you walk, though- you will accidentally fall into them and they can't be manually removed. While Ant Hole is very useful, consensus is that teleporter is more useful in more situations.NA. 400. 30.

Teleporter allows you instantly transport to a very large are around you and stun any bugs there. It will even knock back medium or small bugs, such as grubs or fleas. Teleporter is most useful for getting a zoomed out view of the world, so you don't have to investigate every nook and cranny for food. Teleporter's stunning and viewing abilities make it extremely recommended. 4 second stun. 400. 20.

Howitzer is Ant's most expensive ability, allowing Ant to shoot rockets from a huge cannon that appears on his shoulder. It is neither powerful enough for the cost nor the cooldown. Nearly every other 25000 XP ability does vastly more damage. 40 per shot, ~4 shots per second. 1500. 150.

Burrow mines are three small mines that you thrown close together to make a minefield or use as grenades. To use effectively, would make a minefeld out of them in rarely traveled areas. Retreat there and dish out 2000 points of qccumulated damage when needed. Not as strong or effective as claymores, which are recommended instead. 100 per mine, three mines. 800. 45.

Entrench decreases the amount of damage ant takes and increases his damage, but stops him from moving. It costs 800 dollars and is best used to push back a medium sized group of attackers. Must be paired with minigun and lucky shot or very ineffective. Entrench unlocks at 7500 XP for Ant. Increased damage and knockback. 800. 60.

Plasma Cannon is a single shot cannon that does heavy damage. It unlocks at 15000 XP, retails for 800 dollars and can affect multiple enemies if in close range. Plasma cannon is Ant's best heavy ability and very useful in many situations. 350. 1000. 60.

Big Bullets A necessity for playing offensively as Ant. While most players agree Ant is a support hero, if he is to be used offensively, this a good ability and useful to those ends. X2 damage. 1000. 60.

Piercing Ammo Like Big Bullets above, best used if playing offensively. However, it is more powerful than Big Bullets for the same price and has a similar cooldown. Obviously useless if using Worm, but with a lot more possibilties than Big Bullets. Pierces bugs. 100. 70.

Goggles a complete luxury which provides little useful value than Teleporter can't do. It's active ability is junk and the passive one is useful, but not at all worth 800 dollars and a slot. Not recommended. Slight increase in damage. 800. 60.

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Dev Description:
A quick, high damage but vulnerable assassin from the Widow Clan, who has joined the trio of heroes for her own secret reasons. Her attacks can devastate single, high HP targets and cut through armor like butter, but are not so great vs masses of smaller enemies where she can easily be overwhelmed. Spider is the mysterious assassin hero. She (eventually) carries 4 large blades which deal massive damage to single targets. Spider is fast, but vulnerable, and players will have to be careful to avoid getting overwhelmed and quickly killed.She is best used to get in, kill the big targets quickly, and get out.

My Description:
Spider is extremely powerful, and her speed and assassinate abilities should be leveled first. If you use Spider a lot, Iron hood is great, as Spider can quickly get killed by little bugs. To play effectively as Spider, you must only attack large bugs and avoid damage at all costs. A mob of fleas or a few a few Armor Ants can deplete Spiders's health like nobody's business. Avoid getting cornered at all costs because it is not uncommon to get trapped and lose all your health trying to escape, seeing as Spider can only attack a few bugs at a time.
Oxynidus provided a great guide on playing effectively as Spider:

walkthrough help

Continued below...​

 

Spider Abilities​

Assassin bomb is the single most powerful ability in the game, costing only 1000 dollars and unlocking at 15000 XP. It's drawbacks are numerous, though. Assassin bomb is a tiny disc thrown on the ground in a small radius from Spider. It takes five seconds to activate and only damages the bugs directly on top of it. This makes it very difficult to damage any enemies using assassin bomb. By the time it explodes, your enemy will have already walked past it. The only bug assassin bomb can hit with any frequency is the centipede, because centipedes are large and slow moving.

Spider's most powerful ability, Assassin Cut, costs 1500 dollars and unlocks at 25000 XP. When activated, Spider damages every enemy in a a large are in front of her. Assassin cut can thin out massive crowds, but when dealing with a few high health targets and many lower HP targets, I've found that kill Howitzer for Ant OS more effective.

Iron Hood costs 800 dollars and drastically decreases the damage that spider takes for fleas and small bugs. Iron Hood reduces damage from fleas and maggots 50% when equipped, and reduces damage 50% from all bugs when activated. It lasts for ten seconds. In most cases, though, you'd be better off using Beetle, and you'd save money too. Iron Hood is absolutely necessary in Coliseum mode, where fleas and small bugs are constant and can very quickly burn through your health.

Poison cloud lasts for thirty seconds, recharges quickly, and costs 600 dollars. It damages any bug that gets close to it. The cloud itself lasts for about dive seconds, and bugs stay poisoned for maybe fifteen seconds. It is the most effective way of getting rid of baby spiders, as it instantly frees them from you and the poison quickly kills them. This ability is useful when you have many bugs facing you, and not enough time to kill all of them. Simply run around them, and you can quickly poison them. Poisoning enemy bugs makes them move slower and damages them. Poison cloud can quickly damage and slow down a ton of bugs, and is usually available due to it's quick recharge time. Unlocks at 2500 XP.

Spider's most balanced ability, Executioner, is useful in many cases for just 800 dollars. Executioner does heavy damage and does not need to be unlocked. Executioner can attack many bugs that are reasonable close to Spider, and either pushes them back, stunning them as well or kills them. Executioner can even push back huge bugs, such as Snails, Centipedes or Scorpions. As one of the few heavy damage abilities available at the start of the game, Executioner is very useful. Even with everything unlocked, it still holds its own and is an excellent option even late in the game.

Snare Web is similar to porta turret, but is more useful in later rounds. Porta turrets have a set amount of shots they can fire in a set amount of time, but Snare Web damages every enemy that walks on it. This means that one spider web could damage vastly more bugs than a porta turret. The area of a Snare Web is just big enough to fully fit a Vampire Bug. Recharge times seem comparable to ports turrets, meaning one minute to recharge, and lasting two on the battlefield. It costs five hundred dollars.

Superior Assassin slows down time for twenty seconds and for all heroes. It is quite similar to night hunter in that it can be very effective, but also easily waste. Superior assassin is best used to avoid high damage attacks from enemies. Superior Assassin can be very effective to attack Bumblebees and Snails. Superior assassin can be a lifesaver when you have low health and need to avoid damage at all costs.

Night Hunter increases Spiders damage, speed and chance to do critical attacks when it is dark out. Using it will change the day/night cycle to darkness. While Night Hunter is one of the most powerful and useful abilities, it is also one of the easiest to squander.

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Dev Description:
The last of the Beetle Clan, he is a heavily armored tank which uses large AOE attacks perfect for knocking back and squashing hordes of smaller bugs like fleas and ants. His thick armor allows him to brush off their attacks even when surrounded by 20-30 at once. Beetle is the tank and crowd control hero of the game. He is large and heavily armored, able to shrug off hordes Platypus of lesser bugs as if they were nothing — his lack of speed however can give him lots of problems with the bigger or more powerful bugs who can pierce armor. Offensively he uses a huge stick which is capable of smushing and swatting away entire groups of smaller bugs at once.

My Description
Beetle is the most balanced character, and has many high damage abilities. His thick armor allows him to take half the damage of Ant and Spider, so switch to him when you're about to take heavy damage. His starting weapon, a small stick, can be upgraded to a large stick, which like every weapon upgrade increases the damage. Beetle is considered the key to making it to high rounds by many players. Having a higher damage weapon also increases the damage of abilities that use that weapon, i.e. the ability Squash 'Em does more damage with a big stick. Beetle's final upgrade is a wrench. When leveling up Beetle, I recommend upgrading armor, stun and regeneration. Beetle must have high stunning abilities by high rounds or your food stash will get overwhelmed. Upgrading armor partially and buying Shield let you take almost no damage from fleas and maggots, which are frequent throughout the game and can quickly deplete your armor.

Beetle Abilities​

Squash 'Em is one of the most powerful and important abilities for Beetle. It allows you to do very heavy damage to a single enemy. Squash 'Em is an extremely useful ability as it doesn't have huge caveats like Assassin Bomb does. The only downside is that it can only damage a few bugs at a time, so be sure to aim it accurately as you don't want to kill a grub right next to a centipede. Squash 'Em is very useful for taking down queen ants, giant spiders, snails, centipedes and any other bugs with high/very high health. Squash 'Em costs 800 dollars to purchase and unlocks at 7500 XP.

Stampede is available from the beginning of the game and costs 800 dollars. It does Medium-Heavy damage and allows to you charge through a crowd of enemies, damaging and stunning them. Stampede is useful not just for it's offensive abilities, but also because it lets you charge through a crowd of Bugs and escape or make it back to your food stash. Time is paused while charging and you take no damage. As one of the most balanced and powerful starting abilities, just behind Executioner, Stampede is recommended.

Shield for Beetle costs 600 dollars and permanently improves his armor. It is useful for not forcing you to spend your level-ups on Armor, and letting you upgrade other things such as Regeneration. It can also deliver an extremely powerful stunning attack that freezes 5-8 enemies for eight seconds. As one of the most powerful stunning methods in the whole game, Shield is recommended along with it's constant armor upgrades. It also makes Beetle look like a boss and has a quick recharge time.

Shockwaves for Beetle costs $1000 dollars and drastically increases the knockback for each of Beetle's swipes. After Beetle swings, a blast will be sent out that can push back many bugs large distances. Shockwaves won't affect very big bugs, like centipedes and snails, though. Used effectively, Shockwaves can power though hordes of enemies and give you many seconds of time. It is easy to misuse it though, because it looks like it makes your attacks stronger while only increasing the knockback. Shockwaves is very useful, especially at higher rounds.

Adrenaline increases Beetles damage, speed, and knockback. Adrenaline is one of Beetles most balanced abilities and can get you out of many a tight spot. Adrenaline costs just 800 dollars and is unlocked from the start. Once you try adrenaline, you'll constantly be waiting for it to recharge.

Colossus increases Beetle's size as his most powerful ability for $1500 dollars. It passively boosts his damage and knockback slightly when equipped, at the cost of lowering his speed. When activated though, it can more than double his damage and can easily be used to clean out and destroy tons of enemy bugs. Most top players consider Beetle the key to making it to high rounds, and Beetle's most key ability is Colossus.

Warrior Gauntlet is similar to stampede in being unlocked from the start, but undercuts Stampede at just $700. Warrior Gauntlet gives you five seconds in immunity before unleashing a moderately powerful shockwave that stuns and pushes back large bugs and kills small ones. Warrior Gauntlet is useful for it's five seconds of pure protection from all enemies, which makes this enormously useful when you're about to take large amounts of damage. It's stunning abilities add a unique counterpart making Warrior Gauntlet an excellent ability for beginning players, and it's quick recharge time is the cherry on top.

Earthquake Jump is an extremely powerful stun ability that stuns every enemy on the map for 12 long seconds. Costing just 800 dollars, it is extremely useful in buying tons of breathing room. If you're in trouble in any round and have just enough for one ability, Earthquake jump is exactly what you want.

continued below...​

 

The bad guys...​

Snails are large, strong and fast creatures in Bug Heroes. They have very high health and attack you, not your food. While we think of snails as slow and weak, Ant and Spider think of Snails as hulking monsters hell-bent on their destruction. An attack by a Snail does more damage than an attack by any other bug, so avoid their strikes at all coats. Snails move much faster than you would expect for a bug with such huge health and power. The only safe place to attack a Snail is from behind. Your best plan of attack against these beasts is to stun them with Beetle and then finish them off using Spider's high damage attacks.

Elephant Snails are very similar to normal snails. They have two slight changes that make them tougher, though. Elephant Snails have large tusks that drastically increase their striking range. Because of this, it is platypus almost impossible to attack them from the front., and it is more difficult to outflank them. They also have fleas on their back than spawn every few seconds. Kill the elephant Snail quickly, or you will find yourself overwhelmed by Fleas with a few huge Snails bearing down on you.

Centipedes are the bane of you bug heroes. They are one of the few bugs with very high health. Despite their very fierce some appearance, they actually are going after your food. Take them down at all costs, preferably as soon as you hear about them. The ability assassin bomb was specifically designed to take down centipedes, and indeed it is highly effective against them. Also, use Beetle's stunning abilities: Shield bash, Stampede, warrior gauntlet and others are all useful in slowing down centipedes so your base guns/porta turrets/friendlies can help.

Caterpillars are not dangerous on their own, as they don't move nor attack. However, they do cocoon, at which point they have extremely high health. A butterfly will then appear strapped to dynamite; these butterflies are faster than almost everything else and head straight to your food, trying to destroy it. They have relatively low health and will be killed without that much work, but be sure to have teleporter or ant hole so you can move quickly. Butterflies will damage your food stash by 75 points.

Queen Ants overall might be the hardest to fight. They increase the power of every ant on the battlefield, which is much more than you realize. They have high health and are guarded by two armor ants, which respawn seconds after you kill them until the queen is dead. The queen herself does not attack, but the increases she does to other bugs, and the damage you will suffer killing her Armor Ants make here an extremely dangerous bug. When she is on the map, all ants will have a green circle under them. It is possible but unlikely to have more than one queen ant on a map. They are also one of the rarest bug to find, if not the rarest.

Grub launchers probably damage your food supply more than anything else. They spawn in far away locations, and have unlimited range. While slow to fire, each grub does 30 damage to your food supply. Teleporter is a massive help when searching for Grub Launchers to be able to scout large tracks of land quickly. Broadpfc has a way to deal with grub launchers on kitchen:

He also has a way to deal with them on office:

A grub is your typical food attacker. The normal grub is small but often spawns in large groups on later rounds. They are best countered with Beetle. Giant grubs have more health and eat more food. They normally come one at a time, and as such should be handled with Spider. The siege grub is much worse, though. While small, they are armored, and have almost as much health as a giant grub. They move faster and are harder to hit with Ant. Siege grubs can also snatch food away from your food stash without reaching it, because they have very long tongues. Your base guns will also attack anything closer to your stash before attacking siege grubs, which is very annoying when you are chased from your base and siege grubs are stealing your food, and your base guns fire at other bugs instead. Finally, siege grubs appear in groups of four to six in later rounds, so they must be dispatched quickly.

Strategies​

Versago's guide for Ant, round 18 on Coliseum TreeStump

Gritztastic, Round 21 on hard

Oxinidus's guide for Spider, round 19 on Coliseum

Nullroar, round 82 on kitchen easy

Suiting, round 95 on office easy

Explosive, round 102 on pond easy

KPdG's do not do list, round 47 on office hard

broadpfc's huge strategy guide, round 109 on office normal

Oxynidus's huge strategy guide, round 78 on hard

Maps​

Kitchen

Office

Playroom

Pond

Sink

Red dots indicate spawn locations.

Continued below...​

 

Assorted​

Friendlies are fleas exclusive to the yard level that man machine guns and help your side. Friendlies are periodically captured, at which point your current friendlies disappear, and new ones spawn, but with enemy bugs pointing guns at them. Kill these enemy bugs (they are very weak and you can't harm friendlies) and now friendlies will help your side. There are many places on the map were friendlies can spawn; they will never be in every location at one time. The quantity of friendlies and the power of their weapons never constant. Sometimes you have a few weak friendlies close to base, other times you have a lone friendly with a powerful weapon. Friendlies are extremely important and should be freed whenever possible.

For stats about turrets, check out this extremely handy spreadsheet made by Gritztastic.

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Dev description of each turret:
MG Turret: A low cost, medium ranged, rapid fire weapon. Not all that powerful, but its the perfect filler/support weapon and is a good choice vs lots of small bugs.

Sniper Turret: A long range weapon with very high damage. This weapon is a poor choice vs hordes of smaller bugs as it has a slow turning rate and a slow rate of fire.

Zapper Turret: Essentially "battery bazookas", these turrets unleash electric tendrils of energy which slow and have a chance to stun enemies. Essential for keeping large groups of enemies in check.

Firecracker Turret: A very long range, inaccurate mortar type weapon, with a large AOE, medium damage, and high knocking power, scattering enemies all over the place (hopefully off of ledges to their deaths).

Bug Bomb: An emergency defense weapon, the Bug Bomb will explode in a HUGE radius which damages and stuns all enemies if your food stash gets low on health. It is only good for one use.

My description of each turret:
Zapper turrets are the most useful support turret. Even with Beetle stunning people and using Spiders stunning and slowing abilities, it is easy for some bugs to sneak by. Zapper turrets can also defend the base when you're away. A maxed out zapper turret can slow a huge group of bugs in just one hit, and will stun many bugs as well.

Sniper Turrets deliver the most damage of any turret. They have large amounts of range that is countered by slow turning circles. The first upgrade of a Sniper turret is the most important because it can drastically increase the power for a limited amount of money. As with all turrets, the final upgrade brings big increases is damage and speed and is also recommended. Having at least one sniper turret can deal huge amounts of damage to bugs, and Foursaken_Media said that his trick to take down centipedes is Sniper turrets.

Force Field turrets are fairly useful turrets, coming close to rivaling Zapper turrets. Only one FF turret or zapper is needed, and more than one is redundant. A maxed out FF turret will push back any bug before it can eat two bites, and will decrease these bug's damage to your food supply as well. Being the last turret to be unlocked, it is the most unique, and can be used on any map, though FF is probably most useful on yard, as it can defend in all directions.

Machine Gun turrets (abbreviated MG) are the most balanced and useful turret, and must constitute the majority of your defense. Most top players, notably Oxynidus, use four MG turrets on every map. While their range is limited, and frequently reduced, no other turret is capable of evenly attacking both low HP opponents and high ones. MG turrets are the only turrets that can keep back the flood of low and medium HP bugs that swarm in later rounds. To make it to high rounds, it is a necessity to have two or more MG turrets.

Bug Bomb turrets are the least useful turret and a complete waste of money. They cost just 2 hundred dollars and have kill all bugs in a large radius. However, they cannot be upgraded and take an eternity of 15 seconds to fire (a centipede will do 165 damage in that time). The turret will start it's firing sequence once you have less than 75 food and cannot be activated manually. Bug Bomb turrets will not only make the game harder when you have more than 75 food, they'll probable not activate in time if you have less. Bug Bombs are without a doubt the best way to waste money in Bug Heroes.

Future Updates​

Hordes of rats will be added to Bug Heroes.

Future Levels:

Texture files of ice have been found in the Bug Heroes files, implying a highly requested level with snow. A living room level is also coming.

Future Heroes:

Hero 7: The Platypus is a new hero that will perpetually be coming in the next update. He is as large as a cat and is has poisonous gills, so he instantly kills any bug he touches. His starting HP is 2000.

 

Ya, was expecting that.

At least it's there, if you want more info on a specific hero/weapon/ability.

 

Wait a second. Did you actually read the whole thing? That's great, I wasn't expecting that. I compiled a 30,000 plus character glitch report for a game and no one actually read it, and I wasn't expecting anyone to read all of this, either.

 

I go through stages; Ant is too weak! No, spider has no health! Beetle doesn't do as much damage as Spider and is too slow! Ultimately though, all the heroes have certain advantages and you'll get farthest by using all of them

I've found that even when I'm not using a Hero for fighting, they all have useful abilities. Spider's assassin cut can tear through enemies, and does more damage and more range than Stampede. Assassin bomb does more damage than anything else in the entire game, and is critical in stopping centipedes. Poison cloud, along with the fact that Spider moves very fast, can quickly slow and stun many enemies. And Spider web slows, damages and stuns any enemy that walks on it; its essentially a level two stun tower, but it can be placed anywhere and doesn't waste turret slots, nor get overwhelmed by tons of bugs.
Also, have you tried out Spider with Big Blades and maxed out Assassinate ability? She kills so fast; it's unbelievable.