How to spend crystals for the most gain.
This guide is intended to show the way to get the most bang for your buck out of your crystals. Now everybody gets a daily influx of a small amount of crystals which varies depending on what events you have unlocked and your success in the competitive aspects of the game. So this guide will cover a range of daily crystals and even level brackets to some extent. Well, enough with the introduction, on to the meat of the guide.
The first thing I will cover is chromium cards. Unless you have an abundance of crystals or are either just starting or are near end game, I recommend avoiding the chromium packs. When you are first starting out, getting a 4 star character or two out of a chromium pack (that you may or may not have saved for) can give you a huge leg up in completing your battles to get the gear you need, or to help you pick a direction to grow in. Picking a direction is practically essential for good growth rates of the long term variety. Luckily you can always change direction, but the less often you do so, the more successful you will be overall.
But I digress, Chromium cards are also really useful end game. There's not much left to spend credits on maxed characters, getting some shard shop currency or shards for one of the few characters you have left is pretty nice at that point.
About the time you get to the point where you have a six star character or many 5 stars is when buying chromium cards actually no longer really benefits you until end game. Even before then, I wouldn't recommend buying lots of chromium cards, just enough to get a few good characters.
So what is the most productive way to spend your crystals? Energy refreshes, hands down. Now if you are already spending enough crystals on energy refreshes to bring the cost up to several hundred per refresh, buying gear or shards out of shipments may actually be more profitable. I'm not at that level myself, so I have yet to work the math for that cutoff point, but if someone requested it, or I do reach that point, I will edit it in later.
So which energy is more useful: cantina, or regular? Cantina is the more useful of the energies, hands down. It gives you unlimited attempts to farm a certain character's shards. It gives you ability materials. It rewards more credits per attempt than regular energy by far (still rather minimal though). It lets you farm mods. Now regular energy gets you gear, and some characters are hard mode farming only, so both are necessary... But Cantina energy is far more useful.
It is also the rarer of the two. You regenerate 10 regular energy per hour, and get 3 sets of 45 bonus energy for a total of 10 * 24 + 3(45) = 375 regular energy that gets given to you every day. Cantina energy regenerates at 5 per hour, and only gives you one bonus energy of 45 a day for 5 * 24 + 45 = 165 cantina energy per day. That's roughly 2.27 regular energy you get for every one cantina energy. This means that, timewise, cantina energy is over twice as valuable as regular energy.
Now both cantina and regular energy produce experience. Cantina energy starts off twice as expensive as Regular energy, so experience wise, Regular energy is twice as effective as Cantina energy to begin with.
So all of these combine to give us many different priorities. I will now give different lists based on priorities.
Someone who is level 85 will not need to worry about experience, which gives cantina energy an edge.
Someone who is more concerned with abilities would give cantina an edge.
Someone who is more concerned with mods would give cantina an edge.
Someone who is more concerned with cantina farmable characters (in the store or on nodes) would give cantina an edge.
Here is the cantina priority daily shopping list:
Below 50 Crystals: Save them
50-99 Crystals: Save them
100-149 Crystals: Buy one Cantina Energy refresh
150-199 Crystals: Buy one each of Cantina and Regular Energy
200-249 Crystals: Buy two Cantina Energy refreshes.
250-299 Crystals: Buy two Cantina Energy and one Regular Energy refresh
300-349 crystals: Buy two of each refresh.
With a priority on Regular energy:
0-49 Crystals: Save them
50-99 Crystals: 1 Regular energy refresh
100-199 Crystals: 2 regular energy refreshes
200-299 Crystals: 3 regular energy refreshes.
300-399 Crystals: 4 regular energy refreshes
400-499 Crystals: 4 Regular energy refreshes, and one cantina refresh
500-599 Crystals: 5 Regular energy refreshes
600-699 Crystals 5 Regular energy refreshes, and one Cantina Refresh.
700-799 Crystals: 6 regular energy refreshes
800-899 Crystals: 6 regular energy refreshes, and one cantina refresh
900-1099 Crystals: 6 regular energy refreshes, and 2 cantina refreshes.
Balanced Approach:
0-49 Crystals: save them
50-99 crystals: 1 regular energy refresh
100-149 crystals: 2 regular refreshes
150-199 crystals: 1 of each
200-249 crystals: 2 regular, one cantina
250-299 crystals: 2 cantina, one regular
300-399 crystals: 2 of each
400-499 crystals: 3 regular, 2 cantina
500-699 crystals: 4 regular, 2 cantina
700-799 crystals: 3 regular, 3 cantina
800-999 crystals: 4 regular, 3 cantina
1000-1199 crystals: 4 regular, 4 cantina.
1200-1399 crystals: 5 regular, 4 cantina
1400-1599 crystals: 4 regular, 5 cantina
1600-1799 crystals: 5 regular. 5 cantina
1800-1999 crystals: 6 regular, 5 cantina
2000-2199 crystals: 5 regular, 6 cantina
2200-2599 crystals: 6 regular, 6 cantina
Of course you may wish to spend some of this on pvp, and if you're team is competitive, I encourage you to, especially on pvp guild activity day. I wouldn't recommend doing so until you reach about the 300 crystal/day mark though.
The first thing I will cover is chromium cards. Unless you have an abundance of crystals or are either just starting or are near end game, I recommend avoiding the chromium packs. When you are first starting out, getting a 4 star character or two out of a chromium pack (that you may or may not have saved for) can give you a huge leg up in completing your battles to get the gear you need, or to help you pick a direction to grow in. Picking a direction is practically essential for good growth rates of the long term variety. Luckily you can always change direction, but the less often you do so, the more successful you will be overall.
But I digress, Chromium cards are also really useful end game. There's not much left to spend credits on maxed characters, getting some shard shop currency or shards for one of the few characters you have left is pretty nice at that point.
About the time you get to the point where you have a six star character or many 5 stars is when buying chromium cards actually no longer really benefits you until end game. Even before then, I wouldn't recommend buying lots of chromium cards, just enough to get a few good characters.
So what is the most productive way to spend your crystals? Energy refreshes, hands down. Now if you are already spending enough crystals on energy refreshes to bring the cost up to several hundred per refresh, buying gear or shards out of shipments may actually be more profitable. I'm not at that level myself, so I have yet to work the math for that cutoff point, but if someone requested it, or I do reach that point, I will edit it in later.
So which energy is more useful: cantina, or regular? Cantina is the more useful of the energies, hands down. It gives you unlimited attempts to farm a certain character's shards. It gives you ability materials. It rewards more credits per attempt than regular energy by far (still rather minimal though). It lets you farm mods. Now regular energy gets you gear, and some characters are hard mode farming only, so both are necessary... But Cantina energy is far more useful.
It is also the rarer of the two. You regenerate 10 regular energy per hour, and get 3 sets of 45 bonus energy for a total of 10 * 24 + 3(45) = 375 regular energy that gets given to you every day. Cantina energy regenerates at 5 per hour, and only gives you one bonus energy of 45 a day for 5 * 24 + 45 = 165 cantina energy per day. That's roughly 2.27 regular energy you get for every one cantina energy. This means that, timewise, cantina energy is over twice as valuable as regular energy.
Now both cantina and regular energy produce experience. Cantina energy starts off twice as expensive as Regular energy, so experience wise, Regular energy is twice as effective as Cantina energy to begin with.
So all of these combine to give us many different priorities. I will now give different lists based on priorities.
Someone who is level 85 will not need to worry about experience, which gives cantina energy an edge.
Someone who is more concerned with abilities would give cantina an edge.
Someone who is more concerned with mods would give cantina an edge.
Someone who is more concerned with cantina farmable characters (in the store or on nodes) would give cantina an edge.
Here is the cantina priority daily shopping list:
Below 50 Crystals: Save them
50-99 Crystals: Save them
100-149 Crystals: Buy one Cantina Energy refresh
150-199 Crystals: Buy one each of Cantina and Regular Energy
200-249 Crystals: Buy two Cantina Energy refreshes.
250-299 Crystals: Buy two Cantina Energy and one Regular Energy refresh
300-349 crystals: Buy two of each refresh.
With a priority on Regular energy:
0-49 Crystals: Save them
50-99 Crystals: 1 Regular energy refresh
100-199 Crystals: 2 regular energy refreshes
200-299 Crystals: 3 regular energy refreshes.
300-399 Crystals: 4 regular energy refreshes
400-499 Crystals: 4 Regular energy refreshes, and one cantina refresh
500-599 Crystals: 5 Regular energy refreshes
600-699 Crystals 5 Regular energy refreshes, and one Cantina Refresh.
700-799 Crystals: 6 regular energy refreshes
800-899 Crystals: 6 regular energy refreshes, and one cantina refresh
900-1099 Crystals: 6 regular energy refreshes, and 2 cantina refreshes.
Balanced Approach:
0-49 Crystals: save them
50-99 crystals: 1 regular energy refresh
100-149 crystals: 2 regular refreshes
150-199 crystals: 1 of each
200-249 crystals: 2 regular, one cantina
250-299 crystals: 2 cantina, one regular
300-399 crystals: 2 of each
400-499 crystals: 3 regular, 2 cantina
500-699 crystals: 4 regular, 2 cantina
700-799 crystals: 3 regular, 3 cantina
800-999 crystals: 4 regular, 3 cantina
1000-1199 crystals: 4 regular, 4 cantina.
1200-1399 crystals: 5 regular, 4 cantina
1400-1599 crystals: 4 regular, 5 cantina
1600-1799 crystals: 5 regular. 5 cantina
1800-1999 crystals: 6 regular, 5 cantina
2000-2199 crystals: 5 regular, 6 cantina
2200-2599 crystals: 6 regular, 6 cantina
Of course you may wish to spend some of this on pvp, and if you're team is competitive, I encourage you to, especially on pvp guild activity day. I wouldn't recommend doing so until you reach about the 300 crystal/day mark though.
