User:Kidori/sandbox/Beginner Guide

Welcome to Star Wars Galaxy of Heroes! A turn-based role playing game that features characters and ships from multiple timelines throughout the Star Wars universe. Players are put into the role of a holotable player who collects these holographic characters and ships to use in holotable battles. Battles can be fought in both a player-versus-environment (PvE) and player-versus-player (PvP) format with a team of characters or ships. This guide will cover specific information to help people with understanding it and making better investments of their time. For more information about the game beyond the scope of this guide check out Basic Information and the other Beginner Guides.

Obtaining characters and ships

Characters can be obtained by collecting shards of them while Ships can be obtained by collecting blueprints of them . Each character and ship has a specific number of shards/blueprints needed before the unit can be activated for use in battles, when enough are obtained they will become unlocked at a specific rarity indicated by stars. All star levels can be increased up to 7 stars by collecting more shards/blueprints.

Stars	Total needed	Needed for next level
1	10	15
2	25	25
3	50	30
4	80	65
5	145	85
6	230	100
7	330

Where to find them

Shards and Blueprints can be obtained in several ways:

• Battles: Battles are PvE content where players must spend energy to do battles. Energy is one of the main resources in the game and will regenerate over time. Shards and Blueprints can be found in Cantina Battles and the Hard version of Light Side Battles, Dark Side Battles, and Fleet Battles.
• Token Stores: Tokens are another resource in the game that are earned from different content in the game. Guild Store, Galactic War Store, Cantina Battles Store, Squad Arena Store, Fleet Arena Store, and the Guild Events Store all have shards and blueprints available in them. These stores are located in Shipments from the main menu.
• Shipment, Weekly Shipment, and Store have them available for purchase with the in-game currency, Crystals. The store also offers special bundles that include shards or blueprints that can be bought with real currency.
• Events: Stronger characters and ships are usually unlocked through special events. These events are Legendary Event, Journey Event, Epic Confrontation, and Galactic Ascension. Most of these events have been placed in the Journey Guide, with the exception of recently released ones, to help new players learn about them and access the events for them a lot easier.
• Guild Events: Raids and Territory Battles also include shards/blueprints for rare units.

How to use them

Battles are separated into character battles and ship battles. Players create teams of up to 5 characters, with one designated as the Leader of the team, and up to 8 for ships. With ships one will be a Capital Ship, which is similar to Leaders for characters, 3 designated to start off in the battles (which is referred to as the Frontline) and the last 4 set as Reinforcements that can be deployed into battle throughout the fight. Each character and ship has abilities that players can utilize and synergize with other character/ship abilities to create better teams. They have active abilities that players can choose between during the battle and passive abilities that grant special bonuses and effects. Status Effects such as Buffs and Debuffs play an important part in unit abilities.

Along with abilities, each unit has categories assigned to them that can help increase synergy and utilization. Many unit abilities rely on these categories to activate bonus effects. These categories can be broken down into Alignment, Factions, and Role.

• Alignment separates the units into Light Side and Dark Side.
• Factions separates the units into groups based on things such as profession, race, or political alignment. Examples of Factions are Rebels, Empire, Droid, Geonosian, Jedi, and Sith.
• Roles indicate what the units kit is aimed at and includes Tank, Leader, Support, Healer, Commander, Attacker, and Capital Ship.

Unit progression

Units currently have 6 ways to increase their strength:

• Unit Level which is increased by using Training Droids, Enhancement Droids for ships, and goes from 1 to 85.
• Rarity (Stars) which is increased by obtaining more shards/blueprints of them and goes from 1 to 7.
• Abilities which are increased by using Ability Materials and go from Level 1 to 8. Level 8 abilities will require either an Ability Material Omega or Ability Material Zeta that usually adds significant upgrades to the ability. These abilities are referred to as just Omegas and Zetas with Zetas being the strongest upgrade for unit abilities.
• Gear which is equipped only to characters and obtained from various places in the game and goes from Level 1 to 13.
• Mods which are equipped only to characters and can be used to specifically target stats to increase on the unit. This is currently the only unit progression that allows for choosing what stats to increase.
• Relics which only applies to characters and takes the place of gear starting after Gear 13 and goes from Level 1 to 8.

Level, stars, abilities, and gear are the first ways players can increase the power of their roster (the collection of units they have). Other upgrades are introduced when players get their units to certain levels:

• Level 50 units can be equipped with mods
• At Level 74, 76, 78, and 80 Ability Levels can go to Level 8 for Omega Abilities
• Level 80 Gear Levels can go from 9 to 11
• At Level 82, 84, and 85 Ability Levels can go to Level 8 for Zeta Abilities
• Level 85 and 7 stars Gear Levels can go from 11 to 13
• At Gear Level 13 Relic Levels can start to be increased.

Where to start

The primary focus of the game is centered around PvP, where you are using your teams against other players teams. While the game does offer a wide variety of PvE content, PvP is currently where you can obtain the most Crystals on a daily basis which is going to greatly determine the speed at which you can obtain units and upgrade them in the game. Depending on your play style this may be more or less important to you so over the course of this guide I will break the information into three play styles; Competitive, Casual, and Collector.

Generating Crystals

For most players the place to start is going to be on establishing adequate crystal flow for their play style. This process is not something that can be obtained instantly though and will require planning, so it is best to have it be one of the first things you examine. For example, in Arenas this will require players to create viable teams that can climb and maintain their rank. Crystals can currently be obtained from the following:

• Daily Crystals
  • Squad Arena: Currently the main source for daily crystal generation where players can receive between 15 to 500.
  • Fleet Arena: Currently the second main source for daily crystal generation where players can receive between 50 to 400.
  • Daily Activities: The third source for daily crystal generation where players must complete objectives to receive rewards. The amount of crystals received will vary on your level as well as your luck with the bonus prize box players receive at level 85. Currently the rate is between 65 to 165 depending on the RNG of the Prize box.
  • Galactic War: The fourth and final source for daily crystal generation that requires players to defeat the whole event every day. This will reward 25 and has to be done in order to get the last Daily Activity Reward that grants the most crystals.
• Monthly Crystals
  • Daily Login Rewards: Can give up to 500 in a month if logging in every day.
  • Territory Battles: These are guild events that are held twice a month that tests the guilds combined might of their rosters. One requires using only Dark Side units and the other using only Light Side units. Depending on the amount of Stars a guild can obtain in these events it can add an additional 200 to 1900 a month to all guild members after doing both.
• One Time Crystals
  • Achievements: One time reward for meeting a special objective in the game. Usually includes other rewards as well.
  • Quests: One time reward for meeting a special objective in the game. Usually includes other rewards as well.
  • 1st Time Reward: For clearing Light Side Battles, Dark Side Battles, Legendary Events and Journey Events.
• Paid for Crystals
  • Store: Because Crystals is the games main in-game currency, players are able to spend real money to purchase crystals at different quantities for different amounts. The Store also has Data Cards that may include shards, blueprints, or gear that can may be bundled along with crystals. The Store is what allows players who are able to spend to quickly progress through the game by leveling, obtaining, and upgrading units faster.

It is important to remember that it is possible to reach high Arena ranks without spending money in the game, it just means it will take you much longer to get there compared to those that do spend money. Here are a few recommendations to help people figure out good starting points for them.

• Crystal recommendations for competitive players
  • They should be aiming for no less than top 20 in Squad Arena with a goal of top 5. This will get between 200 to 500 a day from Squad Arena. If you are trying to do it F2P and happen to get into the tail end of an Arena Shard this will probably not work for you and you will probably be looking at the 50-100 rank range or worse until you get teams to compete at the higher ranks that may be in there. With the release of the Hyperdrive Bundle, more details on this below, ranking high in Arena at low player levels for F2P is much harder, if not impossible. Regardless of if you plan to pay or not, if you are planning to be a competitive player it would be worth reading up on Arena Shards and how they work. For Fleet Arena you should be aiming for no less than top 10 with a goal of top 5. This will get you 200 to 400 a day raising your total between 400 to 900 from Arenas which adds up to 470 to 970 after dailies. That is 14,100 to 29,100 a month. These players should expect to spend at least 12,000 to 18,000 of that on refreshing energy, ship energy and cantina energy up to 3 times each every day.
• Crystal recommendations for casual or collector players
  • The overall goal for casual players is at least 200 a day with 250-300 being ideal. For Fleet Arena staying above rank 200 with a goal of 11-50 is ideal which will bring in 0-100. It is possible to reach higher in Fleet Arena as a casual player as the amount of players in the Fleet Shard are way less than Squad Arena. For Squad Arena you should aim to stay above Rank 500. Over time you should be able to rank higher as you obtain stronger units. The goal is to try to have enough crystals to do at least 1 refresh of cantina energy, energy, and ship energy a day with 2 refreshes of Cantina Energy being preferred.

Unit priority

Regardless of play style, it is highly recommended that you consider what event exclusive units you want to obtain and work on progressing the required units for it. Most of these units can be found in the Journey Guide located in the Objectives screen. All of the strongest units in the game are going to come from these events, which means you will need some of them to help you with both PvP and PvE in the game. The Leveling Guides mentioned later in this guide can help you determine which ones you may want to go for first. The game currently has about 5 Tiers of unit strength in the game that corresponds with these events. Those tiers are:

1. Galactic Legend: These units come from Galactic Ascension and are the strongest in the game. Only 1 can be on a team at a time. Requires a lot of specific characters/ships to unlock.
2. Epic: These units come from Epic Confrontation and are usually slightly stronger than Tier 1 Journey characters. Some Tier 2 Journey characters can be included in this. These events can require a lot of specific characters/ships to unlock, but less than Galactic Legend.
3. Journey: These units come from Tier 1 Journey Events and are usually stronger than Legendary units. These typically require 5 specific characters.
4. Legendary: These units come from Legendary Events. Raid units also tend to fall in this category as well. Some Territory Battle units and a few standard units may also qualify. Legendary events will require any 5 units of a specific faction.
5. Standard: These units are typically released as Marquees or in other various ways when first released and take 6-12 weeks before they find a permanent farm spot in a Battle node.

Note: The term strong is referring to the utilization and power the unit brings to a team based on their abilities. The stronger the unit, the more deadly the team or teams they work well on become.