Beginner's Guide to be Efficient
I think a beginner's guide on how to use what's available to you efficiently can be helpful. Read through and don't hesitate to comment on this to share your own pieces of advice.
The basic rule to spending efficiently is to spend on things that give you permanent results. Keep that in mind all the time.
Equipment
- If you do not know how to upgrade your equipments beyond the apprentice level, follow this link: Equipment Upgrade
- Upgrade your equipment evenly. The amount of power you get from the same item quality is not affected by its level, but the price is. For instance, upgrading a Hope Bringer's Sword Level 17 gives you as much additional power than upgrading a Hope Bringer's Sword Level 12, but upgrading the level 12 one is much cheaper.
- The Spirit and Relic items are much more expensive than the other items to upgrade. The Relic is always a good choice, but not the Spirit. This is especially true for mages. Upgrading your Staff will be a much better investment most of the time, even if your staff is of a higher level. This is because you get a higher Magic Attack bonus from the Staff than from the Spirit for a much cheaper price.
- Open the second blacksmith queue as soon as possible. 50,000 coins is nothing and will allow you to upgrade your equipments much faster. If you are VIP 3, open a third one. It's worth it in the long run.
- Always consider the countdown. Whenever the countdown bar goes above 4 hours, you will have to endure the whole countdown before you can use that queue again, unless you pay gems to reset it. If your countdown is 3 hours and the item you want to upgrade adds 1 hour and 2 minutes, you might want to wait an additional 3 minutes before upgrading your equipment. This will allow you to add two upgrades instead of one.
- On a side note, take advantage of Thor's Day to upgrade your highest level equipments. Because upgrading equipments only adds 1/4 of the usual cooldown, you will benefit more from these reduced cooldowns than from the lower level equipments' cooldowns. oreover, you will end up not taking advantage of Thor's Day fully, as you will see your cooldowns at 0 without any remaining coins to spend if you focus on the lower level equipments. Moreover, you will sometimes want to have a bigger hitter with a better sword, or a bigger tank with better defensive equipments. This is the day to upgrade their equipments. Keep the remaining 6 days to upgrade the other ones.
- Spending gems to reset a cooldown can be a good investment, depending on the number of gems required to do so, and depending on the number of gems available to you. 20 gems is too much in my opinion, and 1 gem you can usually wait it out. 3-4 gems is usually a good investment.
- Using your resources wisely also includes who gets which equipment in your party. If you are using a tank (someone who protects others by absorbing as much damage as possible) in your formation, then you might want to give them the defensive equipments. The helmet, which offers the greater skill defence bonus (chips), will be most useful in the back and middle lines, however, because Skill Attacks by heroes like Rhize, Cianna and sometimes Valla or Dawnbringer, will be the only ones to hit them for a good part of the battle. Also, you may want to give your best sword (with the best chips in it) to your biggest hitter. Finally, Set Equipments provide huge advantages. When you have 5 items from the same set, you get defensive bonuses. You might want to let your tank have the first 5 item set you'll get. The 6 item set bonus is an offensive one. You gain more damage AND a morale retention bonus after each skill attack. You don't want to put this on your mage(s) first, but either on your stronger physical attacker, or on someone whose skill attack you want to trigger often (a tankish Saffron for instance). If you pay attention to numerous small details like this, they add up and make a huge difference in the end.
- Opening new slots for chips is a good investment. Do it and make sure you have gems available when you need to do it.
- Use your credits and coins to buy level 1 and 2 chips at the fair (need to be level 30). Do it often and you'll soon have level 5 chips while the others have level 3 chips.
- When you do the Cretan Labyrinth (I call it the Crétin Labyrinth), you get Lab Tokens as reward for reaching 500 points or more. You also get Lab Tokens by beating the extra bosses, which you get to fight for each extra 100 points you get (up to 800). Use those tokens to get additional Spirit equipments, which will allow you to get your 5 or 6 set items on a hero. Do not buy coins, credits, or chips with them. The hero's cards are ridiculously expensive too. You'll gain much more from the additional equipment than from a sainting (or a failed sainting!!!). You should read the following guide when you have time to perform better in the labyrinth (Guide to the Labyrinth - Relocated)
Stars and Medals (at least level 30)
- At the fair, you'll see blue medals ranging from 2 to 7 gems. The ones for 2, 3 or 4 gems are a good investment. You can buy 2 blue medals for 10 gems (5 gems per star) on Friday otherwise. Stars (blue medals) are a good investment early in the game. Later on, you'll find more profitable use from your gems. The more stars you have on a hero, the harder it is to get to the next level.
Using contribution: Guild Chests - Guild Techs
- As you store contribution and as your guild levels up, you will get more chances at the guild chests. You can get nice items there, but also bad ones. I find it a better investment to open numerous guild chests than to spend 1000 contribution on Guild Techs. You will get blue medals, hero's cards to sanctify your heroes, twice the contribution you paid for that chest, Stamina, Gems, Chips, Treasure Maps, XP, Coins, Credits, etc. Some people get blue medals solely from there.
- On a side note, some of the higher level guild techs are worth getting at least lvl 1 if you can: Win-Win (+10% contribution and guild funds per level); Mr. Popularity (5% discount in blacksmith per level); and loyalty card (+10% reputation per level)
Talents
- Upgrade your talents whenever you can. If the price in gems isn't too high to reset the cooldown, do it. If you are VIP2, get that other queue open ASAP.
- Consider your formation when upgrading your talents. During the early game, you'll usually gain more from upgrading Constitution and Strength of Steel. As the game progresses, skill attacks will trigger more often because people will have morale runes and better equipments. Psychic Amplifier and Mirrored Soul will be much more important. Apart from that, try to remain even in your upgrades. Otherwise, you will only perform well during certain combat situations, and poorly during others.
Getting Additional Coins and Credits: the Shrine, the Fair, and the Mysterious Chests
- Early in the game, the Fair is your best option if you want extra coins and credits. There are nice deals there, look for them. For only 10 gems, you can get as much as 1.900K coins or 950K credits (about the highest numbers I've seen there). The worst deals you'll see at the fair are 10 gems for 1,000k coins or 500K credits.
- Even the worst deals at the fair are better than what you get from the Mysterious Chests. For 100 gems, the M. Chests offer a basic 5,000K coins or 2,500K credits I believe. If you're good at math, you'll guess that you can get twice that amount from the fair if you keep an eye open for the good deals. The max you can get for 100 gems at the fair is 19,000K coins or 9,500K credits, and the minimum for 100 gems is 10,000K coins or 5,000K credits. On Wednesdays, there are deals for the M. Chests. For 100 gems, you can get 8,000K coins or 4,000K credits. Again, even during that event, the Fair is a better option.
- As you progress through the Royal Duels, you'll get additional Coins and Credits from the M. Chest, but also from the Shrine. The Fair will eventually become less advantageous than the Shrine, but it will never be worse than the M. Chests. For instance, my guild holds 3 cities that each give a 50% bonus on coins and credits gained, and I have 28% bonus from the Royal Challenge. For 100 gems, the M. Chest gives me 10,240K coins or 5,120K credits. The Fair is still a better option. However, better than that is the Shrine. For 1 gem, I get 450,245 coins (180,098 + 270,147), which means 4,502K coins for 10 gems, or 45,020K coins for 100 gems. The choice is obvious. Problem is, for every 5 prayers you do at the shrine, the gem cost goes up by one. Thus, the more you pray, the less advantageous. But still: the average for the 2 gem cost is 22,500K coins/100 gems, the average for the 3 gem cost is 15,000K coins/100 gems, and the average for the 4 gem cost is 11,250K coins/100 gems. This means that the Shrine is your best option (late game) for the 1 gem and 2 gem. After that, the Fair is a better option. The M. Chest is never, never advantageous. My calculations also apply to the credits.
- Patience here is key. You don't need to buy coins or credits as fast as possible. If you are patient and spend wisely and regularly, it will pay off.