One Punch Man: The Strongest (SEA) Leveling Guide

Read This First: Two Levels, One Routine

The detailed leveling guides for this game are old — the ones below date from 2022–2023 — and the SEA version has changed since. The systems below are the ones those guides document and current guides still describe: two levels, EXP drinks, evolution gates. Treat exact numbers as guide-era, not a live rate table. This guide is SEA scope only — FingerFun's Southeast Asian version. Moonton publishes a separate game with the same name for the global market, and nothing here is imported from it.

One Punch Man: The Strongest (SEA) levels two things at once. Your account (team) level rises by completing quests and unlocks content — more lineup slots, clubs at level 20 — while each character level rises from battle EXP and EXP drinks and stops at a cap until you evolve that character. The grind is therefore a daily routine plus a materials hunt, not a single XP bar.

The currencies behind the grind — gems, coupons, funds — are covered in the companion gems farming guide; this guide covers only levels. The one overlap is stamina: gems buy it, and stamina buys sweeps, so the two guides share one spending decision. If you read only one section of each guide, read the daily routine here and the black-ticket saving rule there — together they are the whole free-to-play plan.

Two Levels, One Routine

The game's first lesson is that "leveling" means two different things, and they gate each other. Your account level is the unlock track: it rises by completing quests, and as it rises, more lineup slots open — up to six characters in a lineup, three in front and three behind — plus clubs, plus new modes. Your characters' levels are the power track: each character earns EXP in battle and from EXP drinks, and each one stops at a soft cap until you evolve it. And a character's maximum level depends on your account level, so the two tracks are chained: account level gates character level, character power gates the content that pays account EXP.

The practical consequence is that you cannot brute-force one track and ignore the other. A player who pours every EXP drink into one character while ignoring daily quests will hit an account-level wall and find their character capped by it. A player who does every daily quest but never farms evolution materials will have a high account level and a team stuck at soft caps. The routine in this guide does both every day, because the game is designed so that doing both is the only way either one moves.

The second lesson is that stamina is the real leveling currency. Almost everything that pays EXP costs stamina: sweeping stages for evolution materials, running the daily challenges for EXP drinks, clearing Conqueror Challenge floors for gear. Stamina refills over time, comes from friends (one per friend, up to fifty a day), and can be bought with gems. The leveling guide's job is to tell you where stamina pays best; the gems guide's job is to tell you what the gems are worth. Together they answer the only question that matters each morning: where does today's stamina go?

Account Level: Quests Unlock the Game

Your account level is the unlock track. Android Police puts it plainly: raise your account (team) level by completing quests, and more lineup slots open as it rises — up to six characters in a lineup, three in front and three behind. The fan guides disagree on the exact account level for the sixth slot (26 in one guide, 30 in another), so treat the unlock as gradual, not a fixed number to aim at. What is not in dispute is the direction: quests raise the account level, the account level opens the slots, and the slots decide how much of your roster actually fights.

Daily quests are the account-EXP engine: the beginner's guide calls them the main ongoing EXP source as you progress, completable in 30 minutes to an hour, with play-time rewards at 5, 10, 15, 20, 30, 60, 90 and 120 minutes each day on top. That is the shape of the daily session — half an hour to an hour of quests, plus staying logged in long enough to collect the play-time rewards. The quests themselves are the routine: they are the same every day, they pay account EXP and the materials the character track needs, and they are the reason the game is a daily habit rather than a weekend binge.

Clubs — the guild system — unlock at account level 20, per Android Police, and club boss challenges and vaults are named gear routes once you are in. Join a club as soon as you can: the SEA beginner's guide is explicit that you should quick-join any club at the start, since you are in no shape to apply to the top clubs, and you can always quit and join a higher club later. Clubs provide core activities — club challenges, contests and quests — and most clubs run an external chat group on Discord, WhatsApp or LINE. The guide's own advice is worth quoting directly: communicate with your club and build friendships, because friends keep you playing, and otherwise you will feel like quitting easily. That is not flavor text. In a game whose grind is a daily routine, the social structure is the retention mechanic, and a club is how you get it.

Home unlocks at level 28 and is the quiet Battle Points system: figurines and Home features raise your BP, and Saitama's own upgrades live nearby — Memory (Saitama Coins), Talent (Talent Points from Daily Quests) and Investigate. You cannot play as Saitama himself in battle, but his progression systems still pay. Do not neglect them: Talent Points come from the daily quests you are already doing, so they are free power for a routine you already run.

Character EXP: Drinks and the Daily Challenge

Characters earn EXP in battle — about 6 EXP per dungeon run, per the old quick-level guide — but the fastest route is EXP drinks: six types of cans and bottles, each giving a set amount, per AppGamer. Drink them from the character screen by tapping and holding until the character hits its soft cap; battle EXP alone is too slow to carry a team.

Farm the drinks in the daily EXP Challenge, which scales to your team's power and runs in four level categories (LV26, LV39, LV46 and LV56), each with Novice, Intermediate and Advanced difficulties, per AppGamer. Cleared stages can be swept — two free sweeps by default, plus one more for watching an ad — and you still earn a difficulty's rewards if you lose, though you cannot advance until you clear it. The Mall sells EXP drinks directly if stamina runs dry.

Source: AppGamer Daily Challenge guide (November 2022). The amount and quality of EXP items depends on the level category and difficulty you tackle.

Three details change how you run it. First, the challenge is hero-type only — you need a reliable six-man hero team for it, which is a roster requirement, not a suggestion. Second, losing still pays: you do not have to clear a difficulty to earn its rewards, and the game shows your best progress on a difficulty, so around 90% means your team is almost powerful enough to clear that stage. Third, the sweep economy is the real constraint: two free sweeps by default, plus one more for watching an ad for 25–30 seconds. That third sweep is free, and free is free — watch the ad. The challenge scales to your team's overall power, so as your team grows, the rewards grow with it. Do it every day, at the highest category and difficulty you can reach, and the drinks will keep up with your roster.

Stamina: The Real Leveling Currency

Almost everything that pays EXP costs stamina, and that makes stamina the resource the whole leveling loop runs on. Sweeping stages for evolution materials costs stamina. Running the daily challenges for EXP drinks costs stamina. Clearing Conqueror Challenge floors for gear costs Vitality, the parallel stamina for that mode, at 8 per challenge. Battle EXP is nearly free — about 6 EXP per dungeon run — but battle EXP is also nearly worthless, which is why the stamina economy matters more than the EXP economy. The question each morning is not "how much EXP do I need" but "where does today's stamina go".

The spending order for stamina is the same as the spending order for everything else in this game: the gate first, the grind second. Evolution materials first — qualifications from Heroic stages, medals from normal stages — because a capped character earns nothing and the gate is the only thing standing between your roster and its next level. Daily Challenge sweeps second, because the EXP drinks from the EXP Challenge are the leveling fuel and the Coin and Training Challenges pay the money and skill books the roster needs. Conqueror Challenge floors third, because gear is the multiplier on the levels you just bought. Battle EXP last, or never — at roughly 6 EXP per dungeon run, it is not a leveling method, it is a rounding error.

One practical habit decides whether the stamina economy works: never let the time refill sit at maximum. Stamina that refills while you are already full is stamina that never existed. If you can only play twice a day, play once in the morning and once in the evening, and spend the stamina down to zero each time — sweeps are instant, so there is no reason to hold a full bar. The sweeps are the point: cleared stages can be swept for instant rewards, two free sweeps by default plus one more for watching an ad, and a swept stage costs the same stamina as a played stage but none of your time. The leveling loop is designed to be swept, not played, once you have cleared a stage — play the new content, sweep the old content, and spend the saved time on the next gate.

Evolution, Limit Breaks and Skills: The Gates

A character cannot pass its soft cap until it evolves. Evolution raises the cap and sharply boosts base stats, and it costs four materials: one qualification item and three specific medal types, per AppGamer. Qualifications drop from Heroic stages — sweep them once you hold 3 stars — and medals drop from normal stages, so main-quest progress gates your evolution materials. A lot of characters share overlapping medals, so check before evolving whether you have enough materials for your other characters too.

The evolution path itself is a color ladder, documented in the community guide: Normal, then Green, Green +1, Green +2, Blue, Blue +1, Blue +2, Blue +3, Purple, Purple +1, +2, +3, and on. Each step is a gate, and each gate costs the same shape of materials — one qualification, three medals — with the quality rising as you climb. If you tap an incomplete material in the evolution screen, the game shows its sources, including limited ones, and you can collect the required amount without changing screens, provided you have enough stamina. That is the game's own admission that the gate is a stamina problem, not a knowledge problem: the materials are findable, the constraint is the stamina to sweep for them.

Two more systems stack on top of levels. Limit breaks raise a character's star level with badges from boss challenges and character shards, and reaching two stars unlocks passive skills, per Android Police. Badges also come from the Mystery Store, and from two stars onward you need shards of the character as part of the requirement. Skills are trained with Skill Points, gained by leveling and bought, with the skill limit rising in steps of five. The skill books come in two kinds — Basic Skill Books and series books (Esper, Duelist, Grappler, Hi-Tech) — from Club Exploration, Saitama Investigation, and Groceries (Gene Coins). Level, evolve, limit break, train — in that order — and spread none of it thin: the guides agree to invest in a core team and ditch N and R rarities as SR and SSR units arrive.

Do not let a character sit at its soft cap while evolution materials wait in uncleared Heroic stages. A capped character earns nothing from drinks and nothing from battle EXP. The moment a character hits its cap, the priority is the qualification item — sweep the Heroic stage, spend the stamina, clear the gate. A team of capped characters is a team that is not leveling, however many drinks you hold.

The Daily Challenges, Compared

The Daily Challenge has three types, and they pay the three core resources the game runs on: coins, EXP drinks, and training books. Each category has the same boss structure, with strength determined by level and difficulty, and as your team grows stronger you tackle harder variations for better rewards. The three challenges share one rule: you do not have to clear a difficulty to earn its rewards, but you cannot advance until you clear it.

Source: AppGamer Daily Challenge guide (November 2022).

Run all three every day. The EXP Challenge is the leveling engine, the Coin Challenge is the money engine, and the Training Challenge is the skills engine — and skills are the third gate after levels and evolution, so a team with maxed levels and untrained skills is a team that left power on the table. The Quick Deploy function automatically selects the best characters you currently have to face the challenge bosses, which is worth using on the days you are in a hurry. But do not use it as a substitute for understanding the restriction: the EXP Challenge is hero-type only, and a Quick Deploy that hands you a monster-heavy team for it will lose. Check the restriction, then deploy.

Gear and the Conqueror Challenge

Gear comes from the Conqueror Challenge in Exploration: defeat the boss monster and you get random gear and Gear EXP to level it up. Each challenge consumes 8 Vitality, and the good floor level for green and blue gear is floor 3 and above. If done manually, it takes 30 minutes to an hour to consume all of the daily refill of Vitality. A Multiple option at the bottom fast-forwards the Conqueror's Challenge, but it needs an additional item called a Battle Chip. You can also upgrade a gear's ascension level using Star Ascension Cards from the Supply Depot, and level gear with Keepsake/Insignia EXP Cards.

Purple gear unlocks at level 66, per the Mobile Gaming Hub beginner's guide. That is a late unlock, and it frames the gear progression honestly: green and blue gear carry you through the early and mid game, purple is the late-game tier, and the Conqueror Challenge is the route to all of it. Gear can be equipped from the character page, or its Gear EXP can be fed into existing gear. The beginner's guide is explicit about one thing: do not neglect gear on your SR units. SSRs provide carry potential, but SR units are excellent supports for your SSRs, and a geared SR support is worth more than an ungeared SSR carry.

Club boss challenges, club vaults and gear shops are the guide's named gear routes alongside the Conqueror Challenge, and they are another reason clubs matter: the gear you need is partly behind club content, not just solo content. The honest gearing rule is the same as the leveling rule — invest in the core six, gear the supports as well as the carries, and do not spread Gear EXP across a bench you will never field.

Rarity Tiers and What to Pull For

The roster is built in rarities, and the leveling advice depends on which rarity you are looking at. N and R characters are the starting filler: useful for the first days, and the guides agree to ditch them as SR and SSR units arrive. SR units are the workhorses — excellent supports for your SSRs, and worth gearing and skilling properly. SSR units are the carries, the characters whose pulls define a roster. Limited SSR (LSSR) units arrive on black-ticket banners and are the most powerful units of their era. And in 2026 the top of the ladder is UR — Ultra Rare — with new UR characters arriving via Awakening Recruitment, such as the [Fun Wonders] Garou encore, which upgrades SSR Garou through an Awakening item and an Awaken Enhancement.

The pull advice follows from the rarity ladder. Do not spend vouchers as soon as you get them on the standard banners if a limited banner is coming — the limited character is the one that changes your roster, and the standard pool will still be there next week. The beginner's guide is explicit that you should not be afraid to spend vouchers on the standard banners once you have them, because both banners offer different rates and slightly different character pools — but the black tickets are different: they are the limited-banner currency, and the gems guide's saving rule (36 per banner, 7,920 gems, 15,840 a month for two banners) exists because limited characters are the ones that matter. A free player who pulls every standard banner and never saves for a limited one ends up with a wide roster and no peak. A free player who saves for the limited banner ends up with a narrower roster and a character that carries it.

One more rarity fact matters for leveling: you cannot play as Saitama himself in battle, but you will recruit heroes and villains from across the series to form your team, and the game hands out some characters for free — by logging in for seven days, playing through events, and completing chapters in the story. Those free characters are the ones that fill your early core six, and they are the reason the first week's advice is to focus on PvE units you already have (Amai Mask, Beast King, Golden Ball) rather than the SSR you have not pulled yet. The roster you level is the roster you have, not the roster you want — and the leveling guide's job is to make the roster you have as strong as possible while you save for the one you want.

Cores and Team Building

The core is the team's engine: the character whose core skill sets the energy economy for the whole lineup. The SEA beginner's guide is blunt about the starting position — do not level Genos. He may look cool in the anime, but he is never used in the game, in PvE or PvP. When the guide says do not level him, it means his evolution and skills. You can limit break him to 4 or 5 stars for the figurine. Wait for SSR Genos; that one is the bomb.

At the start you probably will not have choices, because core units and hi-techs are few. Keep Genos at a low level while only using his core until you get Mosquito Girl or Dr. Genus. You can use Amai Mask's core, but only if you pumped him a lot and he is speed 1, otherwise you will not have energy during the first round. If you are not confident of a kill, Genus or Mosquito core is more consistent. Ideally you want Child Emperor, which is the best core for PvE. Bakuzan is the second best, then Deep Sea King core. For heroes the core choices are somewhat limited, and if you do not have Child Emperor you are stuck with Genos for most hero-only events — keep pulling and hope for Child Emperor.

Source: OPMTS beginner guide (September 2022).

Focus on PvE, not PvP, at the start. That means powering up core PvE units like Amai Mask and Beast King — always pair them, and you can stop their skills at level 8 — plus Golden Ball, Terrible Tornado (use Hellish Blizzard if you do not have Terrible Tornado, since you need one Esper; Sky King is also a good slot, as he increases extra damage for two rounds), Atomic Samurai (useful for both AoE and single target through follow-up attacks), Dr. Genus (no need to level much, but 5 stars is good, used mainly for his passive), Sonic (no need to level much, there mainly for the basic-attack shatter for bossing), and Carnage Kabuto (both a PvE and PvP god through damage reflect — in harder PvE stages the enemies basically kill themselves). A damage-over-time build — Konbu or Messenger of the Sea with Vaccine Man, using corrode and burn — is the alternative line-up for players who prefer it. Once you can clear the highest Conqueror's Challenge and Talent perfection on auto, do 50 million on club boss, and so on, then start focusing on PvP units or units you like. A good lineup looks like: AoE — Child Emperor (core), Terrible Tornado, Atomic Samurai, Golden Ball, Beast King, Hellish Blizzard; Boss — Child Emperor (core), Sonic, Amai Mask, Beast King, any tank (usually Carnage Kabuto), any Esper (Sky King if using Carnage Kabuto).

The beginner's guide's SSR advice for new accounts is worth carrying forward, even though the game has moved into its UR era since the guide was written: the most helpful SSRs on a new account are Child Emperor, Carnage Kabuto, Terrible Tornado and Atomic Samurai. In 2026 the top of the meta is UR — new UR characters arrive via Awakening Recruitment, such as the [Fun Wonders] Garou encore — but the core-six discipline is the same at any rarity: invest in the six you field, not the twenty you pulled.

The Daily Routine

Here is the routine that turns the systems into a habit. It assumes a player past the first week, with a core six forming, a club joined, and the daily challenges unlocked. Adjust the hours to your life; the shape is what matters.

Every day (30–60 minutes)

• Do the daily quests. They are the account-EXP engine and the main ongoing EXP source. Collect the play-time rewards at 5, 10, 15, 20, 30, 60, 90 and 120 minutes.
• Run all three Daily Challenges. EXP first (drinks), then Coin, then Training. Highest category and difficulty you can reach; sweep cleared stages (two free sweeps, plus one more for watching an ad).
• Collect friend stamina. One stamina per friend, up to fifty a day. Send and receive — it is the cheapest stamina in the game.
• Buy stamina with gems — in moderation. Four buys: 25, 25, 50, 50 gems, 150 total. Stop once the price shows 90 gems. Once you hit level 80+, decrease stamina spending, as it takes exponentially longer to level up from there.
• Check the Mall's Daily Lucky Bag. Free daily value; collect it before you spend anything.

Each leveling session

• Drink EXP drinks on the core six only. Tap and hold from the character screen until the soft cap, then stop and evolve — do not bank drinks on a capped character.
• Evolve at every cap. Sweep Heroic stages for qualifications (once 3-starred) and normal stages for medals. If a character is capped, the qualification is the priority.
• Spend stamina on the gate, not the grind. Evolution materials first, then challenge sweeps, then Conqueror Challenge floors for gear. Battle EXP at ~6 per dungeon run is never the stamina priority.

Every week

• Review the core six. A new SR or SSR pull that replaces an N or R is a promotion, not a side project. Move the drinks and the gear, do not split them.
• Push the Conqueror Challenge. One floor higher is better gear for the whole core. Green and blue from floor 3 up; purple at 66.
• Check the club. Club boss challenges and vaults are weekly gear routes. If your club is dead, quit and join a live one — the guide's advice is to quick-join early and upgrade later.

Common Mistakes

• Spending EXP drinks across every pulled character instead of a core six. Drinks are the scarcest leveling resource. Invest in the six you field; ditch N and R rarities as SR and SSR units arrive.
• Ignoring daily quests: they are the account-EXP engine, and account level gates lineup slots and clubs. Thirty to sixty minutes a day is the whole engine. Skip it and the account stalls.
• Spending gems to refill gold, which Android Police calls the easier currency to earn — stamina is the better gem spend, in moderation. Gold refills are the leak; stamina is the investment.
• Letting a character sit at its soft cap while evolution materials wait in uncleared Heroic stages. A capped character earns nothing. Clear the gate the moment it appears.
• Forgetting friend stamina: one stamina per friend, up to fifty a day, per the beginner's guide. Fifty free stamina a day is fifty free sweeps a week. Collect it.
• Leveling Genos's evolution and skills. Use his core at low level, limit break him to 4–5 stars for the figurine, and wait for SSR Genos.
• Neglecting gear on SR units. SSRs carry, but SR units are excellent supports, and a geared SR support is worth more than an ungeared SSR carry.
• Importing global-version numbers into the SEA game. Moonton's global version is a different game with different codes, servers and rates. SEA numbers only.

Patch State (as of November 10, 2026)

Current state: the SEA version is in its UR era. New UR characters arrive via Awakening Recruitment — the Google Play event listing shows a new UR [Fun Wonders] Garou encore, with an Awakening item obtained from Awakening Recruitment and an Awaken Enhancement upgrade for SSR Garou. UR sits above SSR and limited SSR in the current SEA meta. Pocket Gamer's November 7, 2026 code list for the SEA version includes OPMS3GO (Season 3) and UR-era codes (OPMNEWUR, OPMUR10, OPMUR11), alongside the long-running monthly codes.

The guide-era caveat: the detailed leveling guides for this game date from 2022–2023 — AppGamer's Level Up and Evolution guide (November 2022), AppGamer's Daily Challenge guide (November 2022), the OPMTS beginner guide (September 2022), Android Police's beginner's guide (March 2023), and the Mobile Gaming Hub beginner's guide (2023). The systems they document — two levels, EXP drinks, evolution gates, daily challenges, cores — are the ones current guides still describe, and this guide treats their numbers as guide-era figures to confirm in-game, not as a live rate table. The game has added UR rarity, Season 3 content and new events since those guides were written; the leveling shape has not changed, but the top of the roster has.

What to watch: limited-recruitment banners and their black-ticket economics are covered in the companion gems farming guide. New UR arrivals change which characters are worth investing in — check the current banner before committing drinks and evolution materials to a new pull, and do not evolve a character the week its replacement arrives.

Related pages:

Leveling Time Planner One Punch Man: The Strongest (SEA) One Punch Man: The Strongest (SEA) Gems Farming Guide

Frequently Asked Questions

Sources

Every fact in this guide carries its source. The detailed guides date from 2022–2023 and their numbers are guide-era; the 2026 state (UR era, Season 3, current codes) comes from sources dated November 2026. SEA scope only — nothing is imported from Moonton's global version. Last checked November 10, 2026.

• AppGamer: Level Up and Evolution Guide (EXP drinks, EXP Challenge, evolution materials; 2022)
• AppGamer: Daily Challenge Guide (EXP, Coin and Training challenges; 2022)
• Android Police: One Punch Man: The Strongest guide — Tips for beginners (account level, limit breaks, clubs at 20; 2023)
• OPMTS: Beginner Guide (cores, clubs, stamina buys, black tickets; September 2022)
• GamingOnPhone: One Punch Man: The Strongest Beginner's Guide, Tips & Tricks (lineup slots at 26, play-time rewards; 2020)
• GamingPH: How to Increase Lineup Battle Points (BP) in One Punch Man The Strongest (sixth slot at 30, Conqueror Challenge, skill books; 2020)
• Dunia Games: One Punch Man: The Strongest Guide, How You Raise Battle Points Easily (Home at 28, Saitama upgrades)
• MyAnimeList: One Punch Man: The Strongest Guide (quick-level guide, ~6 EXP per dungeon run, evolution path)
• Pocket Gamer: One Punch Man: The Strongest codes to claim tokens and coins (SEA code list; updated November 7, 2026)
• Google Play: New UR [Fun Wonders] Garou encores! (Awakening Recruitment, UR era)
• MMODude: One Punch Man: The Strongest (SEA) Leveling Guide stub (daily quests, play-time rewards, purple gear at 66)