The First One

The First is only obtainable as a reward in certain special events.

The best quick description of The First is "aggressive bullet sponge". With his slower attack, lower damage per strike and single-target melee range he is vastly out-damaged by many other heroes, so don't expect him to be a heavy troop killer. However, his very high initial armor value and excellent set of health upgrades means that he will be able to take a significant amount of damage, and with his higher than usual movement speed (roughly equivalent to Infantrymen) he can effectively push towards the enemy capture point with troops following close behind him, absorbing damage away from them while they fire. Support abilities that depend on a percentage of his health such as Personal Shields are particularly effective with him.

Unfortunately, because of his low raw damage output and melee range, training The First through combat is very difficult, even on rare event maps where you have full movement control over him. Combat XP comes only from enemy troop kills and he simply can't do that quickly, nor easily prevent squads from circling around him to your capture point. Getting him to high experience levels will have to primarily come from standard timed training at the training grounds.

Hero experience
The First gains levels and skill points as follows, with a maximum level of 25.

Hero training
The benefits and costs of training The First at the Hall of Heroes are as follows. This does not include the effects of skins, artifacts, or equipment, which are detailed below. However, the bottom two rows in the table show the maximum hero stats including all equipment at maximum level, and including the hero artifact also. Note that The First's accuracy and armor are considered maxed, and cannot be trained further except through equipment upgrades. Upgrade costs also always include 1 skill point. 1The level 10 damage upgrade takes 3d instead.

Hero skins
The First has five skins available:

Hero artifacts
The First has one hero artifact, which was available in the event shop for the Monolith event:

Hero equipment
The First can be equipped with five pieces of equipment, with the following costs and benefits. The benefits listed are already totalled (that is, the net increase in going from level 1 to level 2 of the Face of the demon is +100 health). All costs listed are in gold.