General Grievous - the Non-Whale Acquisition Guide

So here I am, fully F2P, one refresh day away from finally unlocking General Grievous. Have him at 75/80 and I need less than a thousand in Shard Shop currency to obtain him. Getting him to 7 stars is a whole different slog, but there isn't too much of a rush at this point since my goal was really just to have him as a character first. More importantly, it's only taken me a little over a month, about the time it takes to unlock a hard-mode only character, so time-wise it's doable. At this rate, 7 stars is feasible in about 4 months, but probably longer than that as I'll have to devote resources after the level cap to more important things.

Anyway, the important thing is to have a bunch of 7* characters spread out among the various shard sources. here's what I had prior to starting out:

GW 7 stars - Lumi, Phasma, IG-86.
Arena 7 stars - Sid, Ventress.
Cantina 7 star - Poe.
Cantina node 7 star - Geonosian Soldier.
Other 7 star - Jedi Consular.

What does this translate into? Daily, if I focus on farming the shards of these characters from all possible sources:

GW - 15 shards. Just complete every day and burn the 1200 GW currency on Lumi, Phasma and IG-86.
Arena - 10 shards. Stay within top 200 and burn on Sid and Ventress.
Cantina - actually spent this on other characters. Only used to get the 5 shards from Poe the last few days since it's the home stretch.
Cantina node - 10 shards at least (1 refill). At a full 129 cantina energy plus one refill, that gives you 31 attempts to get a GS shard. 1/3 is the average. I also only started doing this in the last week.
Hard nodes - 8-10 shards from 3 nodes of Lumi, 3 nodes of JC, 2 nodes of IG-86 and 2 nodes of Poe. Refills needed to maximize.

This works out to about 45 shards a day, 675 shard shop currency. So 30 GG shards in 10 days at the current exchange rate. Longer for me because, as I mentioned, I only went aggressive for GS shards in the last week. Also, because when I began, Poe and IG-86 were still at 6*.

If you've managed to 7* other characters with hard nodes then this exercise becomes even more rewarding, shards-wise.

Meanwhile, I've managed to get Dooku to 5*, Rey to 6* and Gear 8, farmed up QGJ to almost 5* from nothing, and gotten some gear and shards here and there for Barriss and Royal Guard. So I wouldn't say progress has halted completely in other aspects of the game.

Is GG a top-tier character worth all this trouble? Currently nope, but the level cap increase and changes to defense and slow character damage may just change this. And really, I just wanted to see if it was possible to snag him without spending a cent.

General Grievous: not just for whales.


P.S. if they make him available elsewhere or reduce his cost/conversion rate in the shard shop I am going to be so very peeved.

Replies

  • Thank you for this guide. I really appreciate it. Unfortunately for me I only currently have one 7 star character.
  • Thanks for the guide! I am FTP but I am not interested in GG. Nevertheless it is nice to know that he is affordable.
  • Oppo_Rancisis
    116 posts Member
    edited March 2016
    Personally I think using cantina energy and cantina shipments on a toon you already have maxed out is a complete waste, since there are a lot of good characters available to farm there, and regardless of what you think or do, Grievous was made for whales, who have a huge stockpile of extra shards that would have no use otherwise, due to the amount of chromium packs opened.

    Definitely farming "excess shards" is not worth it, specially when the return ratio is so low.

    Myself I just check the shard shop just in case the occasional Vader shards pop up
  • Personally I think using cantina energy and cantina shipments on a toon you already have maxed out is a complete waste, since there are a lot of good characters available to farm there, and regardless of what you think or do, Grievous was made for whales, who have a huge stockpile of extra shards that would have no use otherwise, due to the amount of chromium packs opened.

    You may note that, as far as cantina is concerned, I only pushed that avenue in the last week, when I was nearing the home stretch. I unlocked GG at 4* this morning and will go back to farming normally in cantina, perhaps only converting excess shards from Arena/GW as I see fit, and doing the occasional node farm.

    Sure, GG was made for whales. But it doesn't mean the non-whales can't also obtain him without some effort. There's an almost perverse delight in having him in my roster without spending the hundreds or thousands of $$$ that others have. And he does have significant damage potential, especially with the upcoming changes looking to improve defense and damage output of "slow" characters. Not to mention, with dodge meta being a thing, the fact that his attack cannot be dodged or countered arguably improved his value.

    Ugh, but the gear requirements for this guy... if you thought Rey was bad...
  • Qeltar
    4326 posts Member
    P.S. if they make him available elsewhere or reduce his cost/conversion rate in the shard shop I am going to be so very peeved.

    One of many reasons I have completely ignored him.
    GG clearly took a lot of development effort and I'd guess right now less than 0.1% of players have him unlocked, with that number not increasing quickly. It seems very likely they will not allow this to continue forever.
    Quit 7/14/16. Best of luck to all of you.
  • PlagueisFido3
    9 posts Member
    edited April 2016
    Currently at 7100 shards but waiting until I'm close to being able to unlock him at 80/80 before I purchase the 30/10/5s just in case they end up lowering the cost.
  • Is GG a top-tier character worth all this trouble? Currently nope, but the level cap increase and changes to defense and slow character damage may just change this. And really, I just wanted to see if it was possible to snag him without spending a cent.

    General Grievous: not just for whales.

    The comment alone about is he worth is priceless, the rest of this content is definitely worthy of mention. I like this. I have been working on the easy gear characters even before they starting making the shard shop because they are low hanging fruit.. and its been great.

    I am only at 30 /80 but still making progress.. Like you said no rush, great guide. Thank you.

  • ravened
    18 posts Member
    Great guide! Does someone of you already have General Grievous?
  • I just unlocked GG as well, without spending any money at all. I'm pleased with the results of my focused efforts to obtain him. Anyone can try their luck against him in the arena. He's in my droid squad now, led by HK-47. GG at 7 stars would be brutally powerful with other droids to boost his HP. He's already impressive at 4 stars
  • My aproach is a bit more conservative. I will only put the GW shards to use on GG because i really need the cantina and arena shards characters. So my income is 225 frags a day. And if i see an opportunity to exchange them for Vader chards, i will. No hurry, in 6 months i'll have fun with him too :)
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