If you’ve spent any time grinding ranked matches in Mobile Legends, you’ve probably stared at other players’ shiny regional or national hero badges and wondered how they pulled them off. I spent my first six months playing the game bouncing between different heroes, never cracking 4,000 hero power on any of them, no matter how many matches I played. Once I started asking top-ranked friends and testing different strategies myself, I hit 12,000 hero power on my main tank hero in less than two months. If you’re tired of slow, inconsistent gains, this guide breaks down exactly how to raise hero power in Mobile Legends without wasting hundreds of hours on low-impact matches.
Core Factors That Determine How to Raise Hero Power in Mobile Legends
Before you start chasing higher hero power, it helps to understand exactly what the game measures to calculate that number. Contrary to popular belief, it’s not just based on how many matches you win with a hero. Moonton’s algorithm looks at a mix of short-term and long-term performance to assign your rating, so you can’t just grind 1,000 matches and expect a top badge.
The biggest contributors to your hero power are win rate with the specific hero, consistent in-match performance against players of similar or higher rank, and your overall account rank tier. For example, a win against a team of Mythic players will give you far more hero power than a win against a team of Epic players, even if you have a perfect KDA in the lower-ranked match. The game also weights your most recent 20 matches more heavily than older ones, so a short losing streak can knock your rating down fast even if you have a 60% win rate overall.
That means you don’t have to play a hero hundreds of times to get a high rating. I’ve seen players hit 10,000 hero power in as few as 60 matches, as long as they maintain a high win rate and strong performance every game. It’s far more effective to focus on quality matches over quantity when you’re chasing higher hero power.
Optimize Your Hero Pool and Draft Selection for Faster Gains
One of the biggest mistakes new players make when trying to raise hero power is spreading themselves too thin across 10 or more different heroes. Every time you switch to a new hero, you have to learn their combos, power spikes, and counter picks all over again, which kills your win rate and slows your progress significantly.
The best approach is to focus on 2 to 3 core heroes per role that you enjoy playing and that fit the current meta. You don’t have to pick the most overpowered hero in the patch, but you should avoid picking heroes that are heavily nerfed or have very low win rates across all ranks. For example, if the current meta favors high-burst mages, picking a slow, utility-focused mage that’s out of favor will make it much harder to win matches consistently, even if you’re good at them.
Draft selection is just as important as your hero pool. Picking your main hero into a hard counter will almost always lead to a bad performance, even if you’re a top player with that hero. Follow these simple rules during draft pick to avoid unnecessary losses:
- Check the enemy draft first before locking in your main hero to avoid hard counters that will tank your performance
- Only pick your main hero if your team has a balanced draft (at least one tank, one damage dealer, one support) to avoid uneven team fights
- If your main hero is already picked or banned by the enemy, switch to a secondary hero you are equally comfortable with instead of forcing a bad matchup
I learned this lesson the hard way when I kept locking in my main Esmeralda even when the enemy had two true damage heroes on their team. I lost 5 matches in a row, dropping almost 800 hero power in the process, before I realized I was just throwing matches by picking into a bad counter. Swapping to my secondary tank hero for those matchups immediately stopped that losing streak.
Improve In-Match Performance to Boost Hero Power Consistently
Even if you win a match, you’ll barely gain any hero power if you have a bad performance. The game tracks stats specific to your role to measure how well you played, not just your overall KDA. That means a tank that has 0 kills but 15 assists and 40% of the team’s damage taken will get a bigger hero power boost than a gold laner that has 5 kills but only 1 assist and 10% of the team’s damage.
For all roles, prioritize farming minions and jungle creeps in the early game to hit your item power spikes as fast as possible. A lot of new players run around looking for fights in the first 5 minutes, falling 2 or 3 levels behind the enemy laner and becoming useless for the rest of the match. Even if you get a few early kills, falling behind on farm will make it impossible to carry later in the game, and your hero power gains will suffer for it.
You should also aim to participate in at least 70% of your team’s team fights unless you’re split pushing to take a turret or inhibitor. High participation shows the algorithm you’re contributing to the team’s success, not just farming on the other side of the map while your team loses fights. That said, don’t run into a team fight that your team has already lost just to get an assist. Feeding unnecessary deaths will hurt your performance rating far more than missing one assist.
Small habits like placing vision wards in high-traffic areas, helping your jungler take objectives, and protecting your damage dealers will add up over time to better performance scores, even if they don’t show up on your KDA stat line. I started placing 10+ wards a match on my support main, and my hero power gains per win went up by almost 30% overnight, even though my KDA stayed almost exactly the same.
Avoid Common Mistakes That Drain Your Hero Power Unnecessarily
Even if you’re playing well and winning most of your matches, small mistakes can slow your hero power gains to a crawl or even make you lose rating over time. The first common mistake is queuing for ranked matches with friends that are 3 or more tiers below you. The game will match you against lower-ranked opponents to balance the lobby, so you’ll barely gain any hero power when you win, and you’ll lose a lot more if you lose the match due to your underperforming teammate.
You should also avoid queuing for ranked matches when your ping is over 100ms or you’re dealing with frequent lag spikes. Even a half-second delay can make you miss skill shots, fail to escape ganks, or mess up team fight combos, leading to bad performances and unnecessary losses. I always test my ping in a classic match first if I’m playing on a new Wi-Fi network, to avoid throwing ranked matches due to bad connection.
Another big mistake is keeping to play ranked after you’ve had 2 or more consecutive losses. When you’re on a losing streak, your judgment gets clouded by frustration, and you’re far more likely to make bad decisions, pick fights you can’t win, or force bad drafts just to get back at your teammates. Stop playing ranked after 2 consecutive losses and take a 20-minute break, play a few classic matches for fun, or log off entirely for the day. Most players lose hundreds of hero power a week by tilting and forcing matches when they’re not in the right headspace.
Raising your hero power doesn’t have to mean grinding 8 hours a day or spending money on fancy skins or emblems. By focusing on a small pool of heroes, picking good drafts, prioritizing strong in-match performance, and avoiding common tilting mistakes, you’ll see consistent gains every week. I’ve used these exact strategies to get 4 regional hero badges over the last year, and they work for every role and every rank tier. If you stick to these rules, you’ll master how to raise hero power in Mobile Legends and get that shiny badge you’ve been wanting far faster than you expected.