The Perfect Guide for the Perfect Start 2017 Edition

Prev1
Bartrollomeo1
18 posts Member
edited November 2017
Hello there,
anyone having any questions regarding this guide may join a discord server:
https://discord.gg/M4jAFfd

You can find some players there that will answer your question faster than on forum.

The Perfect Guide for the Perfect Start 2017 Edition

Since most of the guides on the forum are outdated and left behind by their authors I have decided to write one on my own.

We are focusing at levels 1-27 to create a huge headstart when arena race starts.

WHY SHOULD I FOLLOW THIS GUIDE
When you hit level 28, you will be placed on arena shard. Shards are filling up to 20 000 players, after that space is filled, a new shard starts. After being put in such shard, there is no way to change it – you will always play along the 20k people that you had at your shard at the start.

Why we want to score top in arena?
It's obvious – arena is the best place to gather crystals as f2p users.

Why we want to prepare for arena with this guide?
When you are put in a shard, race begins. Those who are ahead become even more ahead, because of great arena rewards that let you refresh. They spend more energy than you, they have higher level than you, they have better gear and ability level than you.

Since you don't want to spend on the game, with low arena rank you won't be able to do as many energy refreshes as whales, so you will – faster or slower – fall behind.

With enough patience and preparation, you can tighten that gap, given enough luck you can even have whale-ish gameplay.

PHASE ZERO

TIME ZONE
You may want to manipulate your time zone so you have your collection/fighting time at more convenient hours. Time them well, once set, they can never be changed.
Especially be careful about arena and fleet arena payouts, since you will probably need to keep an eye on the game at this time.

Collecting/Refreshing hours are: 0 h (all activities reset, Arena and GW store refresh, shipments, new challenges), 6h (shipments, GW store refresh, Arena store refresh), 12h (free energy, free cantina energy, all shops refresh, shipments), 18h (collect arena reward, free energy, new shipments, guild + fleet + arena store refresh), 19h (collect fleet arena reward), 21h (collect free energy, guild + fleet store refresh).

PHASE ONE
CREATING AN ACCOUNT levels 1-5 (12*)

You picked your timezone, you have created a new account. What now?
We play the game to level 5. Play a couple of Light Side 1 missions, do enough of them to get to level 5.

And stop there for a minute.
After you hit level 5, you will gather a couple of crystals from the achievements and most of all – you can connect your account to Facebook for extra 200 crystals.
That amount, plus the amount we have from dailies and achievements gives us enough crystals to get our hands on our first chromium pack.

*Another way – if you don't want to do fake Facebook account, doing all your dailies will give you a level 12 and enough crystals to buy a a chromium. You can connect multiple swgoh accounts to just one Facebook account.

FIRST CHROMIUM
First chromium is almost always guaranteed to be a full character. That's why we don't want to waste this one on a useless toon. We want a good one, which can be later utilised in our game. That 2* Resistance Trooper ain't helping you at all.

Toons we want
Baze – probably the best you can get now, great autotank whom slows opponents down, have a mass dispell and a single target dispell, part of a Chaze combo with Chirrut
Rex – great leader, can be used in tons of squads
Wedge – used later with Biggs for a Wiggs combo, devastating rebel duo, also great rebel lead

*Chirrut – part of a said combo, not that great without Baze, still a solid pick. We favour Baze, since only way of getting him as f2p is hard node 9 and TB store, which unlock in game later than Chirrut who is easily obtainable from a fleet store.
*Lando – nice 4*, Scoundrel for a credit heist but since he is so easy to obtain from cantina he is not that great pick
*STH - great tank that gives TM to your team when damaged, Scoundrel for credit heist, another nice pick

It will take some time, Wedge may not be obtainable according to some players who did a ton of rerolls and never seen one.
Info from DarthZannaH user -
close to 200 rerolls, no Wedge. Been doing this since August. Seem like 20 bazes, 15 chirruts, a lot of Lando's, Rex'es, Jyn's, etc...

Unless we get a good toon, we keep on rerolling accounts. But don't forget them entirely – write down the Google Play account you created - we will need them later in game, details in a section below.

You may want to use an android emulator, not to spam your phone with a lot of Google Play accounts, guides how to run emulator are easily found on the Internet.

*Bonus
You may entirely skip this 'don't do anything past level 8, go straight to level 22 to unlock guilds. By getting 200 crystals from facebook connect, another 100 from achievement you get by joining the guild, daily rewards and daily activities you will have enough to buy a second Chromium pack. You will most likely get a huge dissapointment by getting some random shards but if you dare to test your luck, go ahead. In best case scenario, you get two nice toons for free.

**Bonus BONUS
You don't even need to go straight to level 22 asap, you can get 280 crystals from login rewards. If you are patient enough you can just collect them and try your luck, up to you.

But most probably your next Chromium will be just a waste of resources.

PHASE ONE AND A HALF 5-8
Just play the game to level 8, stop right there.

PHASE TWO levels 8-27
You rolled a great toon from your chromium, you are ready to move on to the next step. In this part of the game we want to STOP spending normal energy/doing dailies.
We will avoid doing daily activities and spending normal energy. Why?
The math:
After getting to level 5 you will gather ~115 experience.
To get to level 27 (almost to 28) you will need ~2800 experience more.
By going there with normal energy and dailies, you miss opportunities to get more shards, ability mats and cantina tokens. Sure, you cant go straight to level 27 and just hoard from there, but you will be doing nothing but challenges and collecting energy, missing opportunities to gather more shards and stuff from cantina.
2800 energy is 350 attempts at 8 energy node, which will in return give you 115 character shards – enough to have a 4* character even before the real “energy hoarding” phase.
It gives you 4550 cantina tokens, which exhange to 11 purchases – 55 character shards from cantina store, enough for a 3* character.

By doing this, you will depart to your arena with 3 good characters at the start.
(not to mention you will later upgrade them to be even better when you finally spend all of your energy)

With daily cantina energy regen of 165, this part of the game should take around two weeks.

WHO TO FARM?
For f2p players there are two approaches on the game:
'Classic' rebels – as in written in RAW's guide. All that team has is a lot of DMG and extra TM from STH taunt. Probably good choice if you somehow get Wedge from your chromium. You focus on Lando in cantina, Boba in cantina store. This later leads to Biggs from GW store and STH from arena (and much, much later Wedge from fleet/cantina). While this approach is still viable – you are investing in long-term profit characters, you get your scoundrels for heist, your pilots for fleet – they miss one thing. That thing is synergy – early game shards favours teams that have OP synergy. They just may not be enough for crazy-synergistic teams like Phoenix Squadron and Nighsisters, which will probably flood your shard early game.

Phoenix Squadron – rebel squad with amazing synergy. Needed for Thrawn, can do Palpatine. Easy to farm as a f2p, they are in different places so you can farm them simultaneously (exception on Hera and Ezra, but after getting Hera a couple of stars, you can focus on Ezra). They fall off midgame, so you will want to prepare in advance to switch them later on. But they are still needed for Thrawn, so you will eventually farm them to 7*.
Later on farming this squad will be problem, because you will lack scoundrels and pilots, but you may just leave them at 5* and unlock Lando, Boba and Biggs in preparation to midgame, where they stop shining. They also help you clear your GW easily.

AS FOR NOW – NIGHTSISTERS ERA
If you start playing now – your shards will probably be flooded with whales with nighsister teams (90% of top50 in my shard formed like two weeks ago). Clasic rebel team will lack that OP synergy that Phoenix have – in fact, a Phoenix Squad is the only one competetive f2p squad that is still able to cut through nighsister zombie and still place in top5.
I highly recommend Phoenix Squad. But remember to let them go in time – they really start to fall down when the midgame (65-70lvl) strikes. You will eventually want them starred and geared to get 7* Thrawn, but it is a long way ahead of you.
Another profit of Phoenix that they will lead you to Palpatine AND Thrawn – that cuts your empire team to get R2D2 to just 3 more toons (clasic rebels only get you Palpatine, so you still need 4 toons).

After you picked the characters you want to focus on, you just focus on farming the cantina nodes of that characters:
Phoenix Squad:
Spend cantina energy in Hera's 1F (up to level 16) and then Ezra's 2B till level 27. Once you get to 27 you should have both Hera / Ezra / Chopper unlocked at 2* each, ready to get em in arena at day one (level 28). Grab Kanan in Arena Store and then Zeb at GW (level 40) you should get Zeb in 2nd day of GW. Until then, use your chromium pull as 5th (Best are: Baze/Chirrut/SThan/Lando)
Clasic rebels
Lando from cantina, Boba from cantina store for clasic rebel start
In the meantime, we will do all challenges, collect every bit of free energy, daily login rewards, every free bronzium, achievement and gear salvage from shipments. We just avoid getting any exp other than from cantina battles. This gives us a stockpile of credits, gear, ability mats to finally use when we depart to our game.

DON'T SIM ANYTHING, save that sims for much, much later.
We stop this part of the game when we reach level 27 with 90% exp to level 28.

PHASE THREE level 27 HOARDING
We have reached our maximim. We stop spending cantina energy. We should have plenty of character shards, gear and mats. Thats where the boring part of the game begins.

All that we do now is stuff we already did in phase two – getting challenges etc.
More than that, we just collect free cantina energy everyday and wait.

We want to gather energy enough to get us to AT LEAST level 40 in one day. This will unlock GW for us – another place to farm shards easily.
Level 44 would be even better since you will unlock gear level 5 in one run, so your arena team will be most likely, unbeatable to regular players and only to be vulunerable to heavy spenders.

The Math:
Level 40 ~7000 exp more from level 28
Level 44 ~12800 exp more from level 28

From this number we will cut 760 energy that you will get from doing all dailies:
Level 40 ~6200
Level 44 ~12000

After finishing Phase Two (without spending normal energy) – we should have ~2k normal energy to spend (1890 from 14 days of 135 free energy hoarding, not really counting free energy you get from levelups). That cuts another 2k.
Level 40 ~4200
Level 44 ~10000

Everyday you can hoard 180 energy (3x normal, 1x cantina). That means:
Level 40 ~24 days of hoarding
Level 44 ~55 days of hoarding

It depends on you, level 44 means another month of hoarding, and the benefit of starting at level 44 will only last for a couple of days. Getting into play at level 40 is fine.

PHASE FOUR Departing into play SHARD HUNTING

So you have your energy, you have your shards, gear, ability mats and credits. You are finally going to jump into that sweet, sweet shard to wreck havoc.

You get your level 28 aaaaaand...
You get placed at 15k place in a week old shard, with top players already having 50~ level.
You have wasted everything you worked on.

To avoid that, you need to know how shards are formed.

As stated in the beginning, new arena shards starts when the old one fills all 20k places.
Long time ago it took 2-3 days to fill a shard, now they are filling at 1-1,5k/day rate, so going in blindly really places you in risk of getting to a shard that started over week ago at bad rank, witout any chance to catch up on top players. But there is a way to 'hunt' the new shard forming.

Remember all that accounts that you made while rerolling your first chromiums? This is their time. During the phase two and three level that accounts up to level 27 (you just need to sim through dailies twice or thrice, nothing more).
When your main account is ready, let other accounts hit level 28 so they get their arena placement. Doing so will give you the dynamics of the shard forming. Jump in with character once a day, see the movement of the previous shard and try to predict the date of a new shard.
Then, on that date which new shard will probably form level them once every 2-3 hours. When you finally hit the new shard, immidiately follow with your main account. If you do this right, you may be able to jump into top 50 at the very beginning of your journey.
You will probably need around 25 accounts to do so.

BONUS PHASE Your first day
You may use your free 580 crystals (200 facebook connect, 100 guild achievement, 280 from getting daily login rewards for a month) to buy sim tickets from shipments. Using all that energy manually will take a lot of time, this helps a lot.

Keep focusing the cantina nodes of toons of your choice, spend it all. Keep buying from cantina store every refresh, don't miss any. You will have a ton of cantina currency and you want that toons asap.

Do all light and dark side missions you can. First day you can do every single hard node missions – they consume more energy in the shorter time. Farm all the gear you need, spend the rest to level up to 40/44.

Enjoy your advantage, use it as much as you can. Whales will come to your shard eventually, but by following this guide, you shall be prepared and remain competetive.

SPENDING BONUS
You may speed up the hoarding energy by buying energy every other day.
Maximum cantina energy, at which you can still buy refreshes is 999, for normal energy its 1999. By doing so you can start hoarding phase with a ton of energy already.
Go and buy some SIM tickets, so you don't waste all day going through auto battles.

LOLZBONUS
This one needs some special conditions appearing in the game.
First of all, you need some special promotion in the game which gives you free 7* character (like actual Rey and Google Play promo).
Second of all, you need some HPIT and HAAT guild.
Third of all, since no HPIT and HAAT guild will let you leech them off, you need another account that will provide 600 DRT and is usefull for TB.
Forth of all, it needs raids to be run in between TB, so your useful-to-guild-account can participate in TB.
Then, after providing 600 DRT, you leave with one account, then join with your hoarding account and hour before raid starts. You go in, score 0 dmg and still get raid shards. With enough patience and time, you may enter arena with General Kenobi. Bonus – you get a lot of a guild currency, so you can farm even more character shards. (we don't speak about Han, since his last tier only gives one shard. But still, with enough determination)

Hope this helps.
Post edited by Bartrollomeo1 on

Replies

  • Options
    The perfect start guide certainly needs an update, and I'm glad to see you write one.

    When I was hoarding resources for my new account, I found it helpful to get some powerful allies early on, since this let me auto-attack all the daily challenges and win them instantly. (Lots of people are friendly and willing to share their ally codes on the forums.) I also used all of the "apology gems" given out by CG to buy sim tickets. I think you talked about this in your guide, but it's probably worth emphasizing.

    When F2P players eventually start really playing the game at level 28, they should have lots of sim tickets, lots of credit-buyable shipment items, a few million credits saved in the bank, and at least a hundred level III ability materials (the purple ones).
  • Options
    @Apotheosis Sure think, adding allies will even give you double the ally points from challenges, which will increase the amount of bronziums you can get.
    Will add an info about apology gems as well, since many new players may not know about this feature.
  • Options
    Really nice Guide! Thanks a lot for that.

    A Question still remaining for me, is if i roll a good toon such as Baze how can i put him to use in arena early on since i go either with a classic Lando-Team or the Phoenix-squad? Or is he just an investment until i get Churrit?
  • DarthZannaH
    577 posts Member
    edited November 2017
    Options
    @Bartrollomeo1 hey mate, we needed an updated guide and I was trying to find time to write one and you suddenly did, that is great! I will take a look and let you know my comments. Good job. :D

    Please add this in the main topic. https://discord.gg/M4jAFfd

    It's the Perfect Guide SWGOH Discord channel I created this week, I'm helping people get into new arenas.

    It's faster to comunicate there, we can trade tips / links / videos / guides etc...
    Aquilae wrote: »
    Really nice Guide! Thanks a lot for that.

    A Question still remaining for me, is if i roll a good toon such as Baze how can i put him to use in arena early on since i go either with a classic Lando-Team or the Phoenix-squad? Or is he just an investment until i get Churrit?

    @Aquilae Both are great, but I would recommend going Phoenix. Then at later levels 65+ you just buy Chirrut from Fleet Store (60+) or Baze in shipments with crystals. You can get top spots in arena (top10~top5) with full Phoenix, their synergy early on is amazing. You farm Biggs in GW after unlocking Zeb, put them both at *5, then *7 Zeb. You will then farm Wedge/Chirrut (Fleet), and switch from Phoenix to Wiggs/Chaze post lvl 69 (when Wedge cantina node opens up).

    For Heist, you just need Boba/Chewie/Sthan, so unlock Chopper (CS=Cantina Store) and Kanan (Arena) and then go straight into Boba (CS) and STHan (Arena). Farm Chewie in Hard Nodes till *5.

    Remember that for the last Heist tier you need 5 scoundrels at *5, so you will need IG88 *5 and Lando *5, take some time to farm them too, before *7 any toon.

    Do or do not...
  • Options
    Hi all, great guide. Very handy as I am looking to get back into the game after a long break. The rerolls take a bit of time (~40mins) but should be worth it as I am in no rush. Rolled 4 times today and got Plo Koon twice, Rex and Old Ben.

    I'm a bit confused about the posts regarding "Going Phoenix squadron". Do we get gifted some of these guys or are they an easy farm? Still catching up, last time I played was about 16 months ago.
  • Options
    @Giodude2000 They are easy farm, spread around cantina, cantina store, gw and arena.
    They have very good synergy, unlock at 2*.
    Needed for OP Thrawn, can also do Palpatine since they are rebels.

    Will write more about possible choices in upcoming guides focused on early-mid to early-end game, keep tuned as right now we are gathering info and opinions of other players to make the guide as useful as can be.
  • Options
    Ok great. Thanks for that, will keep an eye on this thread.
  • Options
    Hi all, great guide. Very handy as I am looking to get back into the game after a long break. The rerolls take a bit of time (~40mins) but should be worth it as I am in no rush. Rolled 4 times today and got Plo Koon twice, Rex and Old Ben.

    I'm a bit confused about the posts regarding "Going Phoenix squadron". Do we get gifted some of these guys or are they an easy farm? Still catching up, last time I played was about 16 months ago.

    40 mins just to roll a new account? Might be doing something wrong there. Are you creating a new Google account each time? If you’re on an emulator, you can just change device ID and you’ll get a new Guest Account, only bind it to a Google Account if it’s any good. I think I used to roll 1 every 10-15 mins back in the day.
  • Options
    I'm doing it on my phone, takes about 30 mins to do the activities up to level 12 to get the crystals and 5 mins to set up the new Google account. Looks like there is a limit on the number of accounts you can set up on the phone before it thinks you are a robot. I managed to get 6 accounts before I couldn't do any more:
    2xPlo Koon
    1xRex
    1xOld Ben
    1xResistance Trooper
    1xUgnaught (lol)

    Might need to look into getting an emulator or setting up fake facebook accounts to speed up the process.
  • Revill
    6 posts Member
    edited November 2017
    Options
    Hey Bartrollomeo1, I am new and startet with your guide.. I made a couple of accounts and the best I could get was a Storm Trooper Han. Now I want to start a Phoenix Squad. You are saying we should farm Hera and Ezra a couple of stars and chopper from the Cantina Store.
    An arena team consists of 5 chars as i know so which one should I combine when i have Ezra Hera and Chopper. When I am at lvl 28, how should my phoenix squad for arena look like?
    thx
  • DarthZannaH
    577 posts Member
    edited November 2017
    Options
    @Giodude2000 you can link Facebook in Level 5 to get an extra 200 crystals and pull the chromium. When you Link Facebook you are not assigning your account to a gmail. It's different. You can keep rerolling by changing emulator ID / clearing app data.

    @Revill once you unlock cantina at level 8, you should only spend cantina energy in Hera's 1F (up to level 16) and then Ezra's 2B till level 27. You should absolutely not grab any daily XP or spend normal energy. Once you get to 27 you should have both Hera / Ezra / Chopper unlocked at 2* each, ready to get em in arena at day one (level 28). Grab Kanan in Arena Store and then Zeb at GW (level 40) you should get Zeb in 2nd day of GW. Until then, use your chromium pull as 5th (Best are: Baze/Chirrut/SThan/Lando)
    Do or do not...
  • Options
    thx for your answer DarthZannah, it helps me a lot!
  • Options
    @Giodude2000 You can link multiple accounts to one facebook account (needs confirmation, haven't checked that myself yet).

    Will sit down later in the evening to write minor fixes and some more info. Work on the new guide is in progress as well.

    @Huatimus 30-40 min to make 3 of those, tbh I never was 100% focused on making them and did some stuff in the meantime. The process should take 10-15 min if focused.
  • Options
    I pulled baze on my third try! Should i stick with him and then, as the guide says, unlock hera then ezra while getting chopper too? So my team would be hera (L), ezra, chopper, baze, farmboy luke/chewie/jc? When should i go for lando?
  • Options
    @Wolfkid As said in the guide, Baze is a very solid pick, you can definietely stick with that account.
    Getting Phoenix Squad is more beneficial in my opinion.
    If you follow the guide, you will have the Hera, Ezra, Chopper at the start.
    For first two days you will use Hera, Ezra, Chopper, Baze and whoever (Luke/JC is fine).

    After 2 days you will unlock Zeb from GW, so you will include him in the team.

    If you will be lucky enough to hit top 3 in arena, in 2 days you will gather 2000+ arena tokens - enough to get Kanan.

    So, with enough luck, you should be running full Phoenix Squadron team at your day 3 of arena. If unlucky with rank at first two days, you will have them at day 4.

    Remember to check their gear requirements and farm those, so you can unleash them as soon as you unlock them.

    As for Lando, by following the PS route we only want him as Credit Heist toon.
    The main problem of Phoenix Squad is that you need to find exact moment to let them go and swap to more late-game oriented team. You will need that Boba and Lando for Heist anyway (and Boba for his ship).
    I would say unlock Boba after you got 5* Chopper and unlock Lando when your Hera and Ezra are 5* as well. Then I would continue in 7* Ezra to have some raid toon.
  • Options
    @Bartrollomeo1 thanks for the advice! looks like i have a nice plan to begin with :).
  • Options
    I am kinda confused on how this works. I like the idea but I am not sure on how to do this. Also my first character pull was Ayala is she any good?
  • Options
    @MykeEcho What is the exact thing you don't understand?

    Aayla is not good starting toon, keep rolling.

    Anyone can join our discord group, there are plenty of players there that will help you with your questions.
    https://discord.gg/M4jAFfd
  • Options
    My question is so from 5 - 27 or so we only spend the energy we accumulate each day? Or How much energy do we spend per day?
  • Options
    MykeEcho wrote: »
    My question is so from 5 - 27 or so we only spend the energy we accumulate each day? Or How much energy do we spend per day?

    Try to farm 1,2 good toons suitable with your first open chromium pack - you have to decide what team you will start.

    When you reach lev26,27 you stop farming toon and begin to collect all energies everyday.

    Can keep and buy sim tickets to fit with the large amounts of two types energy. ( in order to have enough sim tickets to speed up lv when you're at lv28.

    Prepare to have good guild to join, good strong allies to help.

  • Options
    @MykeEcho We only spend cantina energy during this period.
    And accumulate regular energy.
    At 27 we accumulate both energies and stop getting any exp points at all.
  • Options
    Yeah...IPhones have a 3 account limit. So if you don’t pull a good toon in your first Chromium you’re screwed. Anyone have a guide that doesn’t require cheating the system so to speak?
  • Options
    Yeah...IPhones have a 3 account limit. So if you don’t pull a good toon in your first Chromium you’re screwed. Anyone have a guide that doesn’t require cheating the system so to speak?

    I think these guides would still work for an iPhone user. Just you don't get to re-roll multiple times for a "good" starting toon. Everything else still applies.
  • Options
    My mistake. I was thinking of the free iCloud accounts. Still, the idea of using multiple accounts to find fresh arena shards and waiting a month to 2 months before really playing the game just to min/max your outcome probably isn’t exactly what a new player is looking for in a guide.
  • Options
    To be fair, this is a guide to the perfect START, not a new player guide. Mostly the people here have played before and are looking to get the best bang for time at the beginning.
  • Options
    Ah. So it’s a perfect start for pay 2 win min/max’ers guide. Got it.
  • Options
    Um not really, but if that is what you want to believe in then sure why not. It is to help free to play players get an advantageous start to compete with the “pay 2 win min/max’ers”, as you call them, in arena. I guess using the term “best bang for time” means money or something?
  • Options
    Ah. So it’s a perfect start for pay 2 win min/max’ers guide. Got it.

    If you’re pay 2 win, you wouldn’t need to cheat the system. Just beat the competition with your money. Everything else in the guide is relevant such as time zone, starting characters to farm and so on. If you’re offended by the energy hoarding sub section, you can just ignore it.
  • Options
    @MykeEcho We only spend cantina energy during this period.
    And accumulate regular energy.
    At 27 we accumulate both energies and stop getting any exp

    Ok that makes sense but won’t only the Catina toons be stared up and the toons that are light or dark be left in the dust? What does the team composition look like because to me only Catina toons will gain stars. Also when it’s time to go back to use light and ark energy do you focus on toon shards or gear? ThNks and sorry for being complicated
  • Options
    Hey all, current status for shard size was at 16K last evening as of 10pm EST, new shard should open fairly soon.

Sign In or Register to comment.