Beginners Guide
What Level of Beginner Are You?
While there are parts of this guide that will help most anyone, the guide is certainly more geared to those of you who have just started the game that are pre-world 5 or so. Hopefully I've caught you before you spent some of those sweet, sweet hard-to-come-by items.Nonetheless, let's get into it.
The Storyline
Enjoy it. Savor it. You'll miss it when it's gone. This is arguably the best part of the game and I'm saying this from a guy who really doesn't prioritize the story aspects of any game. There's just a lot of fun stuff going on in the game and useful items (that you'll use later on) to collect.While you're playing in the storyline there are a few things to take note of. You've probably determined that 3 stars gets you 3, 50 blue gems. What you may not have figured out is that completing the level earns you the first 50 gems, collecting all the yellow star cubes in the level gets you the 2nd 50 gems and collecting all the purple pieces in a level gets you the 3rd 50 gems. The second two are optional but coveted by end-game pla
Also worth mentioning, the purple pieces that you can can be redeemable in the Purple Coin tab in the Shop. You can't spend them well or poorly as they give you exactly the amount of purple coins to buy everything the shop sells (if you've collected all the coins, that is). So eventually, upon collecting all the purple coins in the game, your purple coin tab of your shop won't have anything to purchase.
Join a Guild
I'm not saying this because being in a community makes the game more fun, maybe it does but I'm in this for the sweet, sweet cash y'all! Join a guild for the attendance rewards and the raids. Always participate in the raids, even if you get destroyed. The rewards add upt and they're free so might as well.Eventually, when your account is better defined you may want to join a competitive guild and then logging on after the first raid day is out leads to a lot of free stamina and blacksmithing hammers, which is pretty sweet.
Daily Dungeons & Collections
So every morning when I wake up I have a string of things I do in the game. This is my geeky daily regiment:- Claim any paid subsc
ription packages - Go to Resources pickup 2,000 free gold
- Go to Equipment pickup Blacksmithing hammer (lvl 10)
- Go to Mileage to see if I can purchase a random epic weapon for 300 or Legendary for 100 (usually occurs at the start of a new month)
- Check Guardian Points
- Awakening Dungeon - do my 3 free runs
- Event Rifts (if any) - do my 5 free runs
- Guild Raid (if any) - do my 3 free runs
- Use up stamina on whatever it is I'm pursuing at that time.
Coliseum / Arena
Gonna be up front here but in the beginning of the game you're going to suck at both of these. I mean royally suck. Seriously, seriously woefully ignorantly, wholesomely like a vacuum cleaner on crack going to suck at these two things in the beginning of the game but it doesn't really matter. Every Monday morning they will award you with free blue gems (which are always going to be useful) so long as you participate at all, which you should do.In addition, events usually occur in Guardian Tales that reward you for any activity you do even if you lose in Coliseum or Arena. You want those event points. You'll also get Battle Medals which are redeemable later on for some decent early end-game gear. You'll get 2 medals if you win, 1 medal if you lose. You can do it (and with my guiding, patient hand resting on your shoulder), suck it hard, my little grasshopper.
It's also worth mentioning that since you're not competing, you don't have to worry about the research normally involved to participate in each. Just enter, participate and get your gems. Research will come later in the game when you actually want to push higher for more gems and accolades.
Resource Dungeons
All three of the resource dungeons are very important at different points in your account's maturity. I had actually read a lot of guides saying that you shouldn't pursue XP dungeons and that's both true and not true. Whenever I got a new character, I would run XP dungeons to increase their level because it's the fastest way for their stats to improve. Eventually gold became far more crucial so I ran that a little bit more. Now at the end-game, the only time I ever run XP dungeons is when a new hero is about to come out and I want a little free XP to level that hero as soon as I summon them.Gold will always be useful. Items as well but to a slightly lesser extent. XP's usefulness will diminish as your account matures and you don't have anything to spend the XP on (i.e. your heroes are all capped or at least the ones you'll use are).
Evolving Your Characters
If I could do it all over again (which I won't because I've sunk some money in at this point), I'd not evolve a single character using hero crystals until I got to the end-game and evolution dungeons aren't as much of a priority prior to the end-game.Evolving your character gives you stat increases and opens up awakening nodes. Unless you've sunk a lot of money in, you won't be able to take advantage of those awakening stone nodes (and you really shouldn't) until later in the game anyway.
So that being said, don't use your hero crystals for evolutions, don't evolve your heroes just yet, give it time.
Evolution Dungeons
As previously mentioned, evolution dungeons aren't that useful in the early stages of the game. When gold, xp and items needed to upgrade weapons / armor are so scarce, your stamina should be used in that manner. Not to mention that in the early stages of the game, you won't really get that many evolution stones from the lower level evolution dungeons anyway and it's really not worth your stamina spend.Evolution dungeons are more for the early/mid end-game so just hold off for now.
Currencies to Keep
Whenever anyone thinks of things to say to a beginner it's almost assuredly "DON'T DO X" because we've all made mistakes with our account that we wish we could take back. I'm not exception. That being said, let's go over the currencies / items that you shouldn't get rid of while you're playing through the game.Hero Crystals
Hero Crystals are arguably the most valuable commodity in the game for certainly early/mid end-game and even holds an extremely high value through all end-game content. They can be used to evolve your character but more importantly, they are the ONLY MATERIAL IN THE GAME THAT CAN BE USED TO LIMIT BREAK A CHARACTER. That's pretty crucial because if you stay in the game for a prolonged period of time, that will be important to you. Just don't spend them until much later.Awakening / Hero Reset Stones
At some point you may feel that you've spent a great deal of Awakening Stones on one of your characters as you've leveled but I can assure you, you haven't. There's a lot more to get and unless you are completely going to dump that rare hero that you've somehow jam-packed with awakening stones, you may want to save this reset stone for when you have a better grasp of the game.Gems
Gems it the obvious premium currency of the game and yet, they give them out like candy. Honestly, that's one of the main reasons I kept playing the game and I write this guide now. I like the flow of the premium currency.Nonetheless, you're gonna want some Unique heroes in the very beginning of the game. They're a big deal. You'll get at least one with your first summon (if memory serves) and if you want to spend some gems, you should probably summon a few more (x10 summon). With each new update that comes out (every 2 weeks) you can summon a new hero with a pretty high rate of obtaining that hero and you doing so is never a bad idea. If you've already got that hero, you may want to try summoning the other hero with a high chance (there are generally at least 2 high chance summon heroes each update). Just understand that certain heroes are better than others so you may want to do a little research before spending your premium currency to *TRY* to get one.
That being said, you may not get a Unique hero but you'll get some really nice rare ones. Aoba, Akayuki, Karina, etc that you may want to invest into.
I would advise not spending gems on summoning weapons in the beginning of the game. Heroes get you more mileage and hero crystals (which I've already covered is very valuable).
Option Change Stones
You may get these bad boys from events but they are not to be touched for some time. They are truly end-game only items and you shouldn't play with them unless you know exactly what you're doing and to what items you're doing it with. Just leave them be and hoard them on the events that give you the opportunity to obtain them.Accessories
There are some common accessories that are crazy powerful in the end-game and you'll want to keep your eye on and level. Golden Compass, Sharp Shooter, Ring of Fortress (less common) are quite awesome. If you come across these, equip them and level them and you'll always be able to take advantage of them in the end-game.Weapons and Accessories as Enhancement Materials
In the beginning I commonly used high level weapons and accessories to enhance my equipment but it's not the best idea. Anything white, gray or blue is safe to use as an enhancement material but other items could be making a big mistake. Certainly don't use any of the materials I mentioned above as enhancement fodder or you'll be sorry later on.Awakening Stones
So these bad boys are important. They make up a huge portion of your hero's stats and every character needs them but only some of your heroes will be fortunate enough to have them. Which is to say, they are gated and they are very useful at all stages of the game. Even now, I'm in the top 100's on most of the ranking leaderboards for my world and I friggin WISH I had more awakening stones to round out my squads.You'll be acquiring these awakening stones by your daily awakening dungeon, of which you get three chances to acquire them. You can randomly actually pick up Legendary Awakening Stones from the dungeon which is oh so nice. Nonetheless, never miss this daily at any stage of the game and keep working your way higher to higher dungeon levels to obtain more stones.
Summons
You will eventually be given an option to summon heroes (as we've already touched baYou'll get your first summon upon beating 1-4 (about an hour into the game). At this point you can purchase as many summons as you want (or none at all). Just know that if you get into the game heavily, you'll be summoning a lot which means, that summoning in general will always be useful so feel free to go summon crazy if your wallet is deep enough.
One thing that is worth mentioning that at any time there should be a summon event going on where they introduce a new Unique hero and they also have an older Unique Hero with much higher summoning chances. Personally, I always pick the new heroes up regardless of whether or not I do anything with them and I'll pick up the older Unique Heroes if I don't already have them. Any new Unique heroes that are introduced to the game are usually very, very strong (to entice people to shell out money to summon) so those are always going to be strong purchase.
It's also noteworthy that the heroes that you are summoning, at least most of the rare heroes will be obtainable eventually as you play through the game. They'll join your party and you can use them as you see fit. Obtaining them through summoning however allows you to use them much sooner that your playthrough would allow.
Get a Healer
You're going to need a healer and luckily, there are a handful of quick options. If you're not going to do a lot of summoning, Karina (which you'll receive in 1-6) is a strong option and a lot of people used her in end-game before the first Unique healer was introduced. She's an easy pickup and relatively early in the game too.However the best non-unique healer is going to be Aoba which will require you to complete areas in the first 5 worlds or... just get her in a summon. She's not super rare when summoning but it's not guaranteed either. If you're not going the summoning route, you can just use Karina when you pick her up in 1-6 and if you ever get Aoba, you can either switch over to her or continue to progress Karina as your go-to healer.
Characters to Invest
This is what it all comes down to. Who do you pump your hard-earned resources into as you progress through the game and what characters aren't worthy of that investment. The main hero (the Knight) is always a decent option because you will eventually use him on event rifts half of each month. While they probably won't be in your party at the end-game, a few awakening stones in the beginning of the game is not a bad thing. Oh yes, I suppose I should mention the Knight doesn't need to be in your party at all, they can be swapped out for a more powerful hero.Pump resources into your chosen healer, they will always be useful and also into any uniques that you have. The Knight is a good option as well. Otherwise, it's going to come down to how many summons you get and the unique healers you obtain. Chances are, if you get a unique healer, you should invest in them. They are going to be better than your rare heroes most of the time anyway.
Initial Investments
So here's the deal. If you want to spend money, go for it. It's a great game and you putting more money into it makes the game better for everyone as it funds new game modes and heroes and upgrades. If you don't, then that's fine too, just skip this section. But for those that care, there's only really 2 things you should spend money on at this stage of the game:Everyday Awakening Package
If you spend any real money, this is awesome. I get this every month and I probably will through the duration of my gameplay. It's $30 and you basically get a daily's worth of awakening stones every day. You also get a quick 5 Legendary Awakening Stones which is always awesome to have for later.If you were to obtain this by recharging daily awakening stones dungeon tickets, it would cost 9,000 gems which is around $60 or so. It's a good value.
Summon, Summon, Summon
Spend money to get that new Unique hero that's debuting. As you summon to get that hero, you will pick up a lot of rare heroes along the way, including Aoba (awesome healer) and Akayuki (awesome dps). If, by chance, you get heroes that you already have, you'll be compensated with hero crystals instead, which, as we've gone over, are a highly coveted end-game resource so there's really nothing to lose (outside of your hard earned cash).As far as how much do you summon, I'll leave that up to your finances. However, I only really summon with what deals I can get. Every week you can get 5,600 gems for $29.99 and every two weeks you can get 10,800 gems for $69.99. That's basically 5 summons. I never purchase resources out of the Shop's Resource tab because there's no added "value" to it.
Just understand, your unique hero isn't guaranteed and you may not get them but it's really exciting to try.