Quick answer

Forest Survival has eight character classes: Ranger, Scout, Heavy, Operative, Pyro, Medic, Engineer and Phantom. Each carries exactly one active ability, fired with Q and gated by its own cooldown, plus one always-on passive. Cooldowns run from 5 seconds (Ranger's Dash) to 15 seconds (Heavy, Operative, Phantom) — longer cooldowns buy stronger effects. The same class logic drives Solo, Multiplayer and the Tutorial.

The full class table

Forest Survival's eight classes and their exact numbers are below. Passives are deliberately mild modifiers — the ability is where the identity lives.

Every ability, and what it actually does

Ranger — Dash

Forest Survival's Ranger charges forward and bowls over any robot in the lane. Dash has the shortest cooldown on the roster at 5 seconds — three times more available than the 15-second abilities — and Light Footed trims another 10% off it, so it works as a movement verb, not a saved emergency button. Dash out of a closing melee ring, around a Bulwark robot whose front arc only takes 12% damage, or straight in for a melee swing (60 base damage, 5.2 m reach).

Scout — Adrenaline

Forest Survival's Scout kicks into 1.75× movement speed for 4 seconds on an 11-second cooldown, stacked on Sprinter's permanent +12%. The passive is the part you feel every second: shorter rotations between cover, faster trips to a dropped power-up. Save Adrenaline for the moment a wave collapses onto you and you need to break contact and re-open the fight from a new angle.

Heavy — Bulwark

Forest Survival's Heavy braces a riot shield that soaks damage from the front for 5 seconds, on a 15-second cooldown. "Frontal" is the whole rule — turn away and the shield does nothing, so Bulwark shines against a Siege wave of long-range snipers and fails in an Ambush where fire arrives on every bearing. Plated's +20% max HP is the only raw survivability stat on any class, paid for with −8% movement speed.

Naming clash: Bulwark is both the Heavy's ability and a solo-only robot archetype that takes only 12% damage inside its own front arc. They are unrelated — the robot roster covers the enemy version.

Operative — Overclock

Forest Survival's Operative overclocks the held weapon for 5 seconds: faster fire rate, more damage per shot and unlimited ammo, on a 15-second cooldown. Unlimited ammo is what makes the window scale — hold the Minigun (100-round magazine, 50 ms between shots) or the Launcher (normally exactly one rocket, auto-reloaded) and Overclock deletes the constraint those weapons are balanced around. Crit Trained's +10% headshot damage pays out across the whole run, not just the window.

Pyro — Firestorm

Forest Survival's Pyro opens a wrist-mounted flame projector that throws fire through a full 360 degrees for about a second and a half, on a 13-second cooldown. The jet is centred on you and travels with you, so it is aimed by walking rather than by looking. Its damage arrives in three parts: small, frequent ticks while a robot stands in the jet, a burn those robots then carry away with them for five seconds, and the fuel that lands on the ground and keeps burning for another six — which makes Firestorm an area-denial tool as much as a panic-clear. That suits swarm arithmetic: a Horde wave arrives with half again as many light, fast robots spawning close, and a Splitter bursts into exactly 3 children on death. Burning Bullets adds flat damage to ordinary shots on top.

Medic — Field Triage

Forest Survival's Medic patches health back on a 14-second cooldown — a field stabiliser, not a full heal, so use it to stay above the line rather than as a reset button. The passive matters more than it looks: 0.5 HP per second of out-of-combat regeneration means the gap between waves quietly tops you up, which is a lot of health pickups you never had to walk into the open to collect.

Engineer — Demolition

Forest Survival's Engineer wires a nearby explosive barrel into a remote bomb and sets it off on command, on a 12-second cooldown. Every map is scattered with barrels — roughly 39 by default, up to around 53 on Military Outpost — so the ability is really map reading: pre-wire the barrel beside your intended choke, then trigger it when robots crowd in. Barrels that spawned inside an ARK-07 relay field become irradiated cores and cannot be wired. Quick Hands' −15% reload time is permanent tempo on every gun.

Phantom — Cloak

Forest Survival's Phantom vanishes for 4 seconds on a 15-second cooldown, and robots genuinely lose tracking for that window. This is not stealth — robot vision is 500 m and 360 degrees by design, so you are never sneaking anywhere. Cloak is a hard disengage for a fight that has already gone wrong. Long Cloak's +15% applies only to the lootable Phantom power-up, one of the 12 in-run power-ups, not to power-ups in general.

Which class should you start with?

Forest Survival rewards movement more than any single stat, so a first-time player is best served by Ranger or Scout. Ranger's Dash gets used most simply because it returns three times faster than the 15-second abilities, and it is both your escape from melee robots and your route around armoured fronts. Scout's argument is the +12% passive: it applies every second of every wave, whereas Adrenaline's 1.75× covers only 4 seconds out of every 11.

If melee pressure is what ends your runs, Heavy's Plated is the only passive that raises your health pool at all, at +20% — but read the −8% speed honestly, because it nudges you toward planting, which the wave loop punishes. For sustain without losing speed, Medic's 0.5 HP/sec out-of-combat regeneration starts each wave near full without hunting pickups.

Operative, Pyro, Engineer and Phantom assume you already read the fight: Overclock wants the right weapon in hand, Demolition wants the barrel pre-wired, Cloak wants you to spot a losing engagement one second early. Strong once you know a wave, frustrating before that.

How abilities fit the wave loop

Forest Survival's cooldowns are short relative to a wave, which is the design point — spend the ability every wave, do not hoard it. From wave 4 onward roughly 45% of solo waves take a special shape, and each shape has a class answer. Siege comes sniper-heavy at long range, suiting Heavy's frontal shield or Phantom's Cloak. Ambush arrives very close on every bearing: Scout and Ranger territory. Elite Guard sends half as many heavily armoured robots mostly at once — exactly the profile Overclock's 5-second window is built for.

Boss waves change the maths. The Overlord caps incoming damage at 14% of its maximum HP per hit, but that cap covers bullets only — explosives, nukes and ability bursts are exempt, which is why Pyro's Firestorm and the Engineer's wired barrel are worth holding when a boss closes. Boss waves begin at wave 5 on Hard, 7 on Medium, 8 on Adaptive and 10 on Easy, and from there a boss arrives every second wave — every wave once you reach wave 20. See how to play for the wider loop, or the robot archetypes for what you are pointing these abilities at.

Class FAQ

Do I need an account to pick a class?

No account is needed to pick a class in Solo or Tutorial — both launch straight from the browser with the full character selector. Only Multiplayer requires signing in, and there the class is chosen in the lobby before the host starts the match.

When do I choose my class, and can I change it mid-run?

You choose your class before the run begins — in the Solo and Tutorial character selector, or in the lobby card for multiplayer. The ability and passive resolve once when the scene initialises, so the pick is fixed for that run; to play a different class, start a new one.

Do class abilities work in multiplayer?

Yes — all eight abilities and passives run identically in Solo, Multiplayer and the Tutorial, because one registry drives every mode. What is solo-only is the surrounding content that amplifies a class: the 34 Mystery Box wave perks, the Tactical Director, the four tactical robot archetypes and the Revenant never appear in multiplayer.

Which class handles bosses best?

Pyro and Engineer have the clearest boss argument, because the Overlord's per-hit cap of 14% of maximum HP applies to bullets only and exempts explosives and ability bursts — Firestorm and a detonated barrel both bypass it. Overclock still helps, but its extra damage arrives as bullets and is capped, so the value there is fire rate and unlimited ammo rather than per-hit size.

Further reading on the project wiki

Per-class detail, including ability internals, is maintained on the wiki. It is maintained separately from this site and kept in step with the code.

• Characters — All eight classes with full ability and passive breakdowns
• Game Systems — The skill tree, ranks and account progression

Pick a class and start a run

Forest Survival runs in the browser with no download and no install, and Solo and Tutorial need no account at all — open it, pick one of the eight classes and start wave 1.