***This guide is not meant for the players who spend excessively on Chrono Cards and character packs. God bless you and keep funding the game for the rest of us! Grammar may be wrong and you might not agree with me but this is all opinionated and meant for new low spending players***
While the game looks as if it's the typical pay2win model there is hope for the small or not at all spenders such as myself. Before you can dominate the galaxy with all your favorite heros and villans at level 60 in your 7 star and epic quality gear you have to have a crew that will actually get you to that point. That's what this guide is for. Keep in mind that even if you have a 4 star you luckily got from chrono cards you will spend 100's of dollars trying to advance there stars praying that they drop from more chrono cards. By level 50 a 7 star non chrono pack character that can be grinded in game will out perform
the 4 star almost everytime.
First lets take a look at the starting characters.
CHEWBACCA: You will hear the level 60's pronounce that this character is trash, dies to easily and is a sub par tank compared to it's chrono card peers. And that is true. But he also is a free 3 star who's shards are extremely easy to acquire, has buffs and a self heal and can tank anything in equal level and gear that you need it to. Until you can get Old Ben I advise to invest in grinding his shards and gear all the way to seven star or until you hit the lottery.
JAWA: Not a fan of this character. Has low HP, meh damage and his AOE is Dooku's wet dream...but..his shards can be attained in the game easily and once you get him to 6 stars the little Jawa starts to pack a punch. Worth investing in till around level 40. By that point other DPS characters that can be attained by grinding shards become available that eclipse the jawa's usefulness.
TALIA: This is the only starting character that has ensured there spot in my lvl 60 crew. Invest all the way to seven stars and max gear. Best off healer you can get non chrono card.
CONSULAR: The low end healer of SWGOH. So so heals, low HP, crappy damage and that ugly brown robe. But he is all we have to work with until you can unlock Old Daka through the cantina or Luminara from galactic battle. The positive news is Consulars shards open up in the cantina lvl 3 map so you can easily farm him to 5 or six stars to get you through until you can unlock another main healer.
Now that we have discussed the starting characters lets get down to the meat and potatoes of how to level efficiently. While it might be tempting to spend your last 350 crystals you earned from dailies and arena on that 2% chance you unlock a 4 star always and I mean always use the crystals for more energy to advance level, gear and shards of your current characters. Trust me you will be more powerful with a crew thats level 60, seven starred and fully geared than the guy who has 5 4 star chrono only characters at level 40ish in blue gear because he spent all his earned crystals on the lottery. Once you are geared and high level you can unlock the harder instances and farm better quality characters so its imperative that you race to 60 as quickly as possible with the characters you have. I spend around 500 crystals a day purely on energy. I get those crystals each day because I have ranked number one in arena for a week now. I've spent around 60 USD and spent it all on energy at lower levels to grind levels, shards and gear for for all starting characters. I have no trouble beating the chrono card buyers because I out level, out star and out gear them atm. That may change as people throw hundreds of USD at the game but it goes to show if you're on a budget my way of leveling not only works, it works well. So basically invest in what you have and later in the game you will have the ability to grind the leet squad you really want.
Some tips that might help.....
**Spend crystals on arena reset if you still have powerful enough characters to rank higher. Always rank as high as possible for free crystals and currency to buy shards.
** When unlocking characters through galactic war, cantina and arena concentrate on one character in each at a time. Dont spend 800 vouchers on two different characters. Buy one, wait for the 5 hour reset and buy same character shards.
** First unlocks should be Darth Sidious from Arena, Old Daka from Cantina and whichever you want from Galactic War. I'm going for Luminara in GW just so I can have bith non chrono card healers unlocked.
** Invest some money into the game. While I dont advise to use chrono cards early in the game I do advise to spend money here and there for extra energy to advance your crew. That extra level, gear piece or star may help you advance a little further in the arena and game.
** Keep in mind a store only bought four star will stay at four star for a looooong time without spending 100's of USD where as a character unlocked in-game you can advance to seven star with little to no money. And a seven star will out perform a 4 star almost always.
*** Take your time. Dont be in a rush. In several months everyone will be max level and using the same cookie cutter builds and the ones that spent a ton of money will always dominate. It's the pay2win model. So just enjoy the game!!!!
Hope this helps all the new players:)
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Replies
Hey Bacca is good for you're beginning I say this because I have him and too he's clutch asf. He has decent tanking skills for the first 30 lvls. When I play on lightside I run him with a healer and 3 attackers so it balances out if you have strong people with low hp. In arena He's also been an mvp for me as well, high def and hp makes it hard for someone kill your squad when he has the ability to shift all attacks to him self while the others kill them off.
Talia can only heal by sacrificing her own health and with the improved AI now that seems to target healers first more often than not you end up losing her faster. Her basic attack that can heal her hardly does enough to keep herself alive, not to mention her third skill is currently bugged and doesn't do anywhere near as much damage at it should. If she's the only healer you're using in your team then you're in trouble.
EDIT: I should add that these comments are in reference to Arena PvP. Of course you will need Talia early on in order to progress through the Dark Side Campaign as she is your only healing option until you can get Old Daka.
Jedi Consular on the other hand has a crazy nuke and at higher levels/gear has a solid heal that can have its cooldown reduced by 1 permanently and also has a 25% chance to reduce all cooldowns when doing a normal attack.
Also, IG-88 is still decent for damage if your team is full of debuffers since IG-88 has a passive skill that when upgraded allows you to have +30% crit damage and 15% more damage for each enemy under a negative status effect. Granted as a new player on a budget, your options for debuff characters are small so Sidious is still the first option for Arena shards.
As for the Jedi Consular thank you for that info I have a little more respect for my brown robed friend. I haven't seen a Consular in action in end game like I have Taila. Everyone around level 50 converted to Old Daka for the rezes or if they were rich Barris Offee. Offee is OP end game and I bet will be balanced at some point. Would love to have a seven star Barris.
(ie: you managed to get Barris/BountyHunter/HK47/Ima-gun-di/even a high star dooku).
I would suggest to go for IG-88 first.
IG-88 was not 'nerfed' as hard as people think. He is still arguably the game's highest damage dealer. Lacking only in the HP department. Even his speed is rather decent.
Darth Sidious on the other hand, was nerfed hard. He was the glorious champion before Global Launch. WAS fastest speed in game, one of the highest basic damage, best leader's skill of 30% crit chance 50% crit damage, AoE hits for 3 times of what he does now. (What an absolute monster once upon a time). Everyone of us in Soft Launch uses him. And have him at 6* or 7*.
Now, Sid lost his past glory, everyone wanted him nerfed, he made DPS teams wipe others in 2 AoEs etc. But they nerfed him a little too much for my liking, losing 2/3 of his damage, reducing 2/3 of his leader skill, basic attack dropped, speed dropped, HP dropped...
Therefore, unless you do not have a decent leader, get Sid first. If you have other decent leaders, get IG-88 first as your glass cannon. And Sid thereafter.
Darth has an importance above the rest for one simple reason...his healing immunity. Without it anytime you face a barriss/consular dual healer team chances are you will fail if equal power. That itself trumps the need for IG in my squad. But if I ever try the long gone droid crit hit squad I will def snatch him up!
Edit: My wife just said that Darth's healing immunity is bugged on certain characters. Great lol.
IG-88 basic attack has a 45% chance to 'healing immunity' as well, although it isn't 100% like Sid. And IG-88 aoe attack has a 55% chance to debuff 'ability block'. So he's pretty anti healer as well (including killing them quicker). Both skills are described at level 5 and 6 skill levels respectively.
Barriss Offee's heal current goes through the 'healing immunity'. Unsure if this is a planned effect, since her skill also distributes all damage among everyone equally, so the calculations are weird. (read the description of her skill in characters to understand better, basically the equalize HP part goes through 'healing immunity')
(Do note, all debuffs are subjected to a second dice roll of 'resistance' from the victim, so even Sid's 100% healing debuff doesn't always occur)
But as what we've experience for the past 2 months (was soft-launched somewhere in September for 4+ countries), the game is prone to balancing changes. Therefore it is hard for me to recommend any 'best characters'.
One thing is certain though, HP/heals in this game triumphs damage in the current meta. Reason being, the previous meta we had right before global launch was plagued with huge AoE damage and tanks dying in 2/3 of it, so right before the launch, they 'balanced' it be doing a general reduction to damage to make fights last longer. Some liked it, some didn't, I learnt to live and hopefully adapt to it.
After saving for like a week to buy my first 8x Chromium pack this morning with predictably mediocre results, my first thought was "shoulda listened to WhipIT." Energy refills all the way from now on in.
Now just gotta chose whether to focus on Tusken or IG-86 for a damage dealer... but that's in another post somewhere.
Btw, thanks for the add WhipiT! I know you are much higher than me but your heroes makes the grinding process so much easier! Gonna hit level 40 after reset and try out Galactic War ... maybe you can start a guide on that as well?
I'm currently level 45 rank 50 on my server. Running 4* Sidious leader, 5* Consular, 4* Chewie, 3* Dooku, and I just replaced my 3* Talia with a 3* Luminara. I'm probably going to drop Chewie to pick up Old Daka in the near future. I don't really much care for Talia; her heal drains way too much of her own hp to be worth it in my opinion.
I got caught up in a battle for number one on my server and I hit the chrono cards hard and spent way more than I should have. I phased Talia out.
I'd actually like to replace Dooku at some point prior to 60. I just don't see how he'll be strong at all in the late game. However, I'm sticking with him for now since my Cantina tokens are going to Daka, my Arena tokens are going to Sidious, my War tokens are going to Luminara, and my Cantina energy is going to Consular. Once I have one of those at 7* I guess I can look into picking up someone to replace Dooku.
How do we get stuff like this stickified to the forum?
May the Force be with you.
New & free players will want quick and easy guides to make the best choices in the game early for the best long term payout, and this guide is mainly focused on a Arena percpective, which you will be strongly disadvantaged when playing free initially and there are better places to start focusing for long term gains.
First off I recommend spending a bare minimum on crystals for the acceleration gain which will increase payouts from holotables exponentially as time goes on. This will likely have the greatest impact on speading up your growth, with getting to level 40 as fast as you can being the primary goal.
You want to maximise rewards from each table as fast as you can, and the arena table is only one of those. I think the best way to look at the game is to focus on the tables and the value of what they award.
Most of the tips in the OP sound good and apply to a spending customer, but a new and/or free player can do things much better.
SeroZero makes what I beleive to be a very important point. Chance will likely give you a better leader at some point which should effect the upgrade path you take, and all tables should be considered when deciding where your shard focus should be.
Rather than extend this post anymore I'll be writing a new guide topic with tables as the focal point.
Guild: Fear The Boot
Guild: Fear The Boot