*THIS WILL CONTAIN SPOILERS*
Dear Fellow Gamers,
Many of you may know me from the these forums, toucharcade forums or maybe you might even have me on your friend's lists. If not, I'm lickzy (No capital 'L') and I'm part of the guild "Obscurity". I have been playing this game since shortly after it's release and after 100+ levels, 100's of dollars spent, 100's of hours of game play, and being one of few people to actually "beat" the game, I'd like to share with you some information. I am not going to rehash all the basics of the game, but I will share with you some useful tips to hopefully enhance the gaming experience, so that you can progress through the game and be a valuable contributor to your guild.
First off, I would like to say thanks to Playmage for putting together such a great game. We appreciate the expanding content, regular updates and game support. Please KEEP IT COMING. We all want new content, all of us, however, when the game is "FREE" how is Playmage to create new levels, bonus maps, guild wars, etc? They need our support. So let's give it to them. I will also explain to you the value of using gems, when and where to use them and how to make the most of your money. I do encourage gamers to purchase gems because not only does it enhance your gaming experiences, it helps us all to expand content. "I shouldn't have to spend money to play this game" some people will say. Well look at it like this. In this day and age, nothing is free, especially entertainment. You can spend 10 bucks to go to a 2 hour movie. You're spending 5 dollars an hour for entertainment. Buy a Video game for 50 bucks that you play for 25 or even 50 hours? You're spending between 1 and 2 dollars an hour for entertainment. Entertainment costs money so I encourage everyone to show their support for this game... and I will tell you how in a few more minutes.
So let's look at a few areas:
Levelling
What is the best way to level in this game? My personal recommendation are any of the chapter 1 or chapter 2 maps that have .5 energy costs. This will help you maximize experience and minimize energy. Throughout the game you will constantly balance these two items. Wether you're level 1, or level 149, Chapter 2, Town of Trials at .5 Energy cost is the best way to level, hands down. Not only will you get experience but you'll also get a variety of cards too. Use a healer friend card (We'll get to friend's shortly) and your favorite team, put on auto spin, set it and forget it. Come back in 2-10 minutes (depending on team set up and lines used) and Voila! Maximum xp per energy and hopefully a few new cards too.
Friends
At the beginning of the game, I recommend grabbing as many friends as possible. This will allow you many cards to choose from to use in your own battles AND players can use your cards and earn you pal points. When I first started out, many of my favourite cards were recruited using Pal points. As you progress through the game, pal points will be of less significance, however, they can always be used to recruit cards to "strengthen" (we'll get to that later) other cards. More friends gives you more possible solutions to tough battles... atleast in the beginning
Now that we have progressed through the game a decent ways and are relying more on playing the game for cards and pal points are less of a concern, we start to "adjust" or friend lists. I can have up to 75 friends at any given time with my character. I NEVER have more than 20. Why is this? As you approach higher levels, you want access to certain cards all the time. As you can only have access to the 20 most recent friend's that logged on (for 12 hours), I only keep 20 friends that have cards I will use and use regularly. Everyone else is deleted except for those 20. However, I recently obtained virtually every card that I can conceivably think of using and will be repopulating my friend list. "acencd" is my gamer profile if you're inclined
Strengthening Cards
Just to touch on this briefly, everyone should be familiar with the process of strengthening cards to level them. FYI, when you use the same colour cards as the card you are strengthening, you will receive MORE XP than if they are different colour. As a rule, only strengthen cards with the same color of cards. Your cards will level fastest this way and be ready for evolution sooner.
Materials
In order to "evolve" your cards to their 5, 6, 7 or even 8 star capabilities you will need different materials. These can be acquired the following ways. Getting "chests" on regular maps. Playing specific "Bonus Maps" or purchasing them in the guild shop using guild points (more on guild points later). There are 45 different materials available throughout the game. What I recommend players do is this (I can email you the spreadsheet if necessary): because their are so many different materials it is hard to keep track of what you have and what you "need" to evolve. So I created a spreadsheet that shows me what I have at a glance, and then a column beside my material inventory of "what I need" for evolution. I adjust this as I get new cards to evolve and when I spend materials. This way, I know what to go after during "bonus maps" or what to buy in guild shop. Sounds involved but it works for me and saves me time playing bonus maps for materials I don't need.
Earning Coins... and what to do with them!
The hand's down, best way to earn coins is to run solomon mines on the weekend. Running the difficult map, can earn you approximately 60,000 coins per run and it's relatively easy. A team with 9,000 or so HP and a healer can accomplish this ease. Note, I NEVER recommend running Insane Solomon Mines. Though it is very much beatable, it can sometimes require a revive, depending on your spins and requires much more involvement. The 90,000 coins it offers is nice, but not worth the CP/monitoring/revives.
Now what are you going to do with these coins? 2 things. One, you will save an appropriate amount of coins to have on you at all times. I typically keep about 100,000. These will be used for strengthening and evolving your cards and it will also be used to actually play maps. The second thing is to donate them to your guild bank. For every 100 gold you donate, you will be rewarded with 1 guild point. You can use a your guild points on a variety of items, including cards, materials, potions (revive and energy) as well as THE BEST CARDS IN THE GAME. Let me repeat that, THE BEST CARDS IN THE GAME are available in the guild shop FOR FREE. We'll touch more on this later.
Guild Points
I've already mentioned that guild points (known now as "gp" going forward) can be earned by exchanging coins, however, they can also be earned by participating in Guild Wars. I will not explain what Guild Wars are, except they are an excellent way to earn valuable gp to be spent on items in the shop. Also, make sure you participate in the Guild Wars and do your best to contribute 2000 guild points. Contributing 2,000 points or more will unlock a variety of bonuses (including cards, gems and potions) depending on how your guild finishes in the war. Long story short, PARTICIPATE IN GUILD WARS.
What to buy in the guild shop?
+5 Card Limit Increase - This will allow you to hold onto more cards and prevent you from having to constantly "strengthen" your cards or selling them when you go over your limit.
Energy Potions - Self explanatory. More energy = more play time!
Revive Potions - Always good to have on hand, especially in those situations where 4 enemies hit you at once, killing you, when you have 3 gold chests on the level already
As for cards to purchase, this is very much opinion based, but I am a firm believer that the best cards in the game are available in the guild shop. Here are my recommendations:
HP Cards - Naga, Snake Spirit, Werewolf to name a few, these cards can be levelled up to roughly 2,800 HP. If evolved to 7 Stars, they boast over 3,900 HP!!!!
Cards with "Oracle of" Leader abilities - These cards will provide you with a 2.5x HP to cards of a specific element. Some examples are Valkyrie (Fire), Priest (Light) and Cyborg Fighter (Dark)
Zeus - A Red 6 star card that can be levelled up to 8 stars, Zeus will remove 30% of the current HP of any enemy. This is invaluable for bosses with high HP, such as end game content, Panzer dragons and guild war bosses
"Maiden" Cards - Specifically Earth Maiden, Water Maiden and Light Maiden. These 4 star cards can be upgraded to 6 star cards. As 6 star cards, they will "Recover a huge amount of HP each turn" and are invaluable to ANY TEAM.
Cards Instrumental to Any Deck
As mentioned already HP cards, Zeus, Healers and cards with the Oracle ability will give you a card set that has VERY HIGH HP and the ability to do MASSIVE damage. Another card type that is invaluable are poison cards. Some enemies have serious damage reduction where poison will always do a set amount of damage. Some example of cards with the poison ability are Necromancer, Flesh Lotus, Snake Spirit and Night Cobra. Poison is KEY if you wish to be able to beat this game. I recommend everyone have atleast one at their disposal, with my favorite being the 7 star Flesh Lotus Queen!
How/When to spend your money
This will highly be a topic of debate, but first off, I do recommend that everyone purchase some degree of gems. Not only can they be used for valuable cards and potions, it helps support the community and allows for better content, further game expansion etc.
So when do you buy gems? Obviously when they are on sale for the 20% bonus provides some added incentive and obviously you get more as you spend more.
In the beginning stages of the game, I would recommend dropping 20 dollars and picking up 260 gems. Of those gems, I'd use 200 to recruit some 4 star or better cards. These cards will be of extreme use to you as you attempt to build a deck to help you advance in the game and contribute to guild wars. The other 60 gems I would spend on revive potions. Being new to the game, you never know what you will be up against and it always helps to have a few revives in your back pocket "just in case".
As you continue to progress through the game, pick up a few more gems and take your luck at recruiting. This will further expand your card base. Also consider picking up some energy potions. Depending on how often you play, you may find yourself without enough energy to carry on so this will allow you to do so.
So now that you are mid level, have some cards at your disposal, and access to the guild shop, what else should you use your gems on? Me personally, I use them to refresh the guild war timer during guild wars. The more you contribute to the guild war, the more GP you will have and the more materials/potions/cards you can buy! If you manage to get 50,000 guild points or more, and you are the highest GP contributor in the guild, BAM, you just won yourself a 7 star rare card. CONGRATS!
Anyway, I hope that some of you found this little ditty of use. Have fun playing Dragon Era and continue to support the game and it's community, not only for your own self and satisfaction but for the betterment of us all!
lickzy... NO CAPITAL "L"
(I may continue to modify this as I think of additional info. Please feel free to provide your own insight)