New Player, Have Some Questions About Best F2P Characters and Need Allies

PM me if you want to join a beginners' friendly guild. I came back to the game after a 2-year hiatus and it has changed so much that I feel like a noob too. I would farm Phoenix, because you need them as Rebels to unlock some pretty awesome characters like Emperor Palpatine and Thrawn. Besides, as a team, they work extraordinarily well together. When I started, November 2015, they didn't exist yet. My squads were usually a mismatch of different toons and it hindered progression. Phoenix will get you rolling as soon as you unlock 5 of them.

My guild, the lSunBrosl could really help you, you can get useful gear, credits and other goodies if you join a guild and play the game daily. Good luck!

Edit: Don't spend your crystals in shop packs. The videos you watched probably stated this fact. Crystals are better used for energy refills to farm character shards and gear. or to climb in the arena. Don't use them to refresh timers of any kind.

"UnstopableSteve;c-1424911" wrote:
Wedge etc are better than phoenix but people are telling you to focus on phoenix for your long term goals.

You need phoenix for thrawn who is an end game character. Also phoenix can unlock palpatine who is not as great but both are needed to unlock R2D2, you can do the event without those characters but it is very difficult without them. Then with R2 and some others you get cls.

Thrawn, cls and r2 combine to make one of the best squads you can have.

It takes a long time and the early you start the better

"UnstopableSteve;c-1424913" wrote:
Oh btw forget about phasma for now focus pheonix and empire.

If you've read and understood everything I wrote (it's a long thread so you might have just skimmed or read the last post) you'd know that I'm already focusing on getting nothing but Phoenix in terms of character shards right now (unless there are resources that don't overlap). The only thing I'm doing that's not pure Phoenix focus is doing a few upgrades on characters I already have to make the transition to Phoenix more comfortable.

I'm making the call to do that even if it slows my Phoenix progression down a week or two cuz it makes my life easier and me happier. IDC about delaying Phoenix 1-2 weeks if the transition is more comfortable for me. FYI, Kanaan, who I just got yesterday, is already my best geared character at gear level 6 if that tells you anything about how much my so-called split-focus (my focus isn't split, really) is slowing me down (it's not slowing me down much, really).

I'm currently able to clear all the content available to my level and I wouldn't be able to do that if the characters I have aren't as strong as they are (was able to clear Galactic War again after that 1 day when I wasn't).

I'm only asking about Phasma who, if you understood what I've written before, I had no intention of getting until Phoenix is maxed b/c I wanted to know if he's ever going to be useful in some capacity in which case I might give him a few paltry upgrades that doesn't set back my Phoenix progression much if at all. If he's totally useless, I wouldn't do that.


On another note, my guild apparently doesn't do non-heroic raids at all. Is that a common thing? What's the difference in reward b/w heroic and non-heroic that a guild wouldn't do non-heroic at all?

"Letareus;c-1426876" wrote:

"Imperial_CdrShepard7;c-1426537" wrote:
Galactic War is very frustrating some days... You can have no problems for 2-3 days in a row, and all of a sudden you are matched with a person who is 10-15 levels higher and has a $$$ team. That is when the link to how GW algorithm chooses your opponents comes into play. If you have time, I posted a link in my previous post.

Thanks for all your advice! And I had no idea Galactic War was against other players' teams. I thought they were just randomly generated NPC's. BTW, the link you posted didn't work, it's a link to the entire forum.

"fascizio;c-1426704" wrote:

"Letareus;c-1424849" wrote:

"Ishm0zThePresident;c-1424702" wrote:
Hello there , could you post your swgoh profile , so people can recommend things you can do with characters.
Most of characters i had on my old account i didn't even know were useful.

How do I do that - post my profile?

swgoh.gg is an external website that tracks your roster, gear, mods, etc. Pretty much everything in game is tracked there. If you want to take this game seriously, as it seems you do, you'll want to go there and set up/sync your profile. At that point you can link to your profile here on the forums and people can see almost everything about your account, which allows for a lot more specific advice.

Good luck and have fun!

Is that site safe? It's not rated by Norton: https://safeweb.norton.com/report/show?url=swgoh.gg

Swgoh.gg is definitely safe. Everyone who's serious about the game uses it because it's so good.

Don't worry about training droids. You will have enough soon.

As to Sabine farm her hard node. At level 60 ships open. Sabine and two other phoenix members crew one ship. The other three phoenix members crew another ship. Neither ship is great but because you use your best characters the ship will seem good.

As to assists I generally call hera with Ezra and Ezra with hera. Hera's isn't great attack but if you read ezra's special description the person (if support) who is called to assist gets a turn meter bonus. Kanan would get protection up which helps if he is being beaten up.

Between Ezra and hera I would focus on Ezra. He is about half of a non Sabine phoenix's dd potential on his own. Hera's main benefit is she exists which ties together phoenix synergy and expose which isn't really helped by her star.

So I'm level 50 now. I have Zeb at 4 stars, Ezra and Zeb at 3 stars, and Hera and Chopper at 2 stars. I can get mods now. But they take cantina energy to get. Should I focus on mods first, or star upgrades for Ezra and Hera first? And also, which mods should I get for Phoenix?

Also, for equipment upgrades, I'm getting to the point that there are some darkside battles I need to farm for equipment for Phoenix. I can only beat those battles with my high level allies and can't 3 star them, unless I heavily upgrade my Empire squad. So, I need to upgrade some Empire toons in order to farm gear for my Phoenix toons, unless I rely on guild donations and challenges. Should I start upgrading my Empire toons and if so which ones? So far, the only ones that I have that might be worth upgrading are Kylo Ren, Tarkin, Royal Guard. None of them can currently survive one of the dark side battles I need for gear for Phoenix.

Before you know it you'll be working on 50 characters. Just purely focus Phoenix.

Hiya and welcome!
Nudged you to the proper category and linking you to the handy dandy new New Player Index to get started.

Quick guide in more or less a rough order.

Focus Phoenix. It can be your arena team til level 70s. It can get you thrawn and Palpatine.

Once you get first 7 star character make sure you are in a guild doing at least heroic rancour raid.

Scoundrels for credit heist (lando boba sth are key, any two others work Dengar isn't great but you can get him in a shop where there is no phoenix and he unlocks at 2 star)

Replacement arena team, some combination of wedge and Biggs and some other rebels. Perhaps rebels for cls event like sth Leia.

Around here you want to pay attention to your fleet arena team and do your best to star them up and get ships as you can. You will probably run tfp fotp biggs ghost and whatever else is available. Eventually you want boba Vader and maul as a backup.

Empire team for r2d2 event Palpatine and thrawn tfp tarkin and a tank either storm trooper or royal guard.

Rest of cls rebels fbl old Ben Leia sth.

First order team for bb8 (not sure who will be out by the time you get to this stage)

Finn scavenger Rey veteran Han and veteran chewie

While I do want to have a long term plan, what I want to know the most right now is what to do for the next week or so. I won't be getting my first Phoenix character for at least 2 more days (Kanan). The next day I'll get another (Zeb), and the third (Ezra) will be coming maybe 2-3 days after depending on luck (so, 4-5 days from now?), Hera I have 0/25 of because I decided to get Ezra before Hera and they use the same resource (cantina energy).

So for the next week or so, I will only have 2x Phoenix characters (and only after 2-3 days) and they will only be 1 star. I'm not sure Phoenix is strong until you get all five, or have Hera as leader at the least (correct me if I'm wrong). What I want to know is what I'll be using for the next week for the toughest content that I'm doing. Will 1 star Zeb and Kanan be enough for that?

I'm currently getting weaker every day in Galactic War and Arena as my level goes up and my enemies all go up in level and power and everyone is telling me not to put anything in any of the characters I have because "focus Phoenix". Yesterday I cleared the entire map in Galactic War. Today I leveled up and everything jumped up by like 5-10 levels on certain missions (don't remember exactly how much) and I could only clear up to mission 10 (wiped on mission 11).

So what I want to know is, of the characters I already have (or can get sooner than I get Phoenix), which ones are going to be at least somewhat useful in the end so investment in them isn't a waste? Cadwane recommends Farmboy Luke. Is he the only one? Because until I get Phoenix, I need something to use, and what I have is rapidly becoming untenable for arena/galactic war/challenges etc. unless I upgrade them. Are Kylo Ren and Royal Guard really not worth upgrading? Also, I just got a free 4 star Tarkin, is he worth investing in? I have no Darkside leader, so should I use him or Phasma (have to get from scratch) or someone else?

"Dooku_for_days;c-1423888" wrote:
Before you know it you'll be working on 50 characters. Just purely focus Phoenix.

Except for Sabine (5 attempts per day with regular energy), Phoenix can only be acquired with cantina energy , squad arena tokens, and galactic war tokens, so I should just let my regular energy sit there and rot? Also, you can only spend 200 galactic war tokens on Zeb per day, what do I do with the rest? What I'm saying is that even while doing everything possible F2P to get Phoenix is not mutually exclusive with getting other stuff as well.

"cadwane;c-1423890" wrote:
The people who give you advice have no clue pf what they are talking about

Most of my advice came from Warrior Presents (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VDoadb8jNm8&t=26s), AhnaldT101 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WH_RzSMTgP4), and MobileGamer (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M9Tko3O5dQA). Do those guys not know what they're talking about?

"CG_Kozispoon;c-1423891" wrote:
Hiya and welcome!
Nudged you to the proper category and linking you to the handy dandy new New Player Index to get started.

Thank you, I made this post with that intention in mind. I was advised that the only way to get a discussion in here was to post somewhere else and to have a moderator move it here. Note that it is impossible to create a new discussion in this (New Player, formerly the Academy) forum, at least for me (same problem as the old Academy forum). In fact, I've been in communication with TyloRen about it and he moved the Academy to this forum, or renamed it to this forum, because of what I said.

"cadwane;c-1423899" wrote:
Farmboy luke is essential for CLS. Don't waste resources for ahsoka tano or consular.

Start working on Phoenix, then get a good 5 man Empire team, then leia and han from arena store and old ben

What is CLS btw? Guessing Classic Light Side? What does that represent ingame, some sort of special event/challenge? So I guess I'll go back to investing in Farmboy Luke, but what about Kylo Ren, Royal Guard, and Tarkin? And what am I going to use as a healer and tank for the next week (or longer)? Also, Leia and Stormtrooper Han seemed kind of weak having tried them as borrowed characters, you sure they're good and why (or are they good only because they are required for this CLS thing)?

"Imperial_CdrShepard7;c-1423993" wrote:
PM me if you want to join a beginners' friendly guild. I came back to the game after a 2-year hiatus and it has changed so much that I feel like a noob too. I would farm Phoenix, because you need them as Rebels to unlock some pretty awesome characters like Emperor Palpatine and Thrawn. Besides, as a team, they work extraordinarily well together. When I started, November 2015, they didn't exist yet. My squads were usually a mismatch of different toons and it hindered progression. Phoenix will get you rolling as soon as you unlock 5 of them.

My guild, the lSunBrosl could really help you, you can get useful gear, credits and other goodies if you join a guild and play the game daily. Good luck!

Edit: Don't spend your crystals in shop packs. The videos you watched probably stated this fact. Crystals are better used for energy refills to farm character shards and gear. or to climb in the arena. Don't use them to refresh timers of any kind.

Thanks for the offer, I'll consider it. Where can I find out more about your guild? I happened to join what seems like a decent guild, but I've only been in it for about a day so we'll see. If I get booted during my aforementioned 10 day trip w/o my phone, I know where I'll be going.

And yeah, I haven't spent my crystals in RNG packs. But I have wasted a lot of them on useless stuff in the shipments tab back when I wasn't taking this game very seriously and just messing around. Now I'm using them for energy refreshes as recommended by almost everyone. I currently have very few left however.

I am wondering if I should be using the little energy I have on the 50 crystal regular energy refreshes or the 100 crystal cantina energy refreshes (I'll probably only be able to do 1 cantina energy refresh per day vs. 2-3 regular).

Finally, where can I find out more about how raids work? When I do searches about raids, all I see are compositions and strategies. I want to know the basics like raid tickets and how you open/enter a raid, time limits for raids, how they work, etc. Like my current guild has a rule about limiting dmg in the first 24 hours so everyone can get a chance to hit it. Huh? Does the rancor have limited HP or something? I want to know basic information like that.

Welcome to the forums @Letareus ! There are a lot of resources for new players in the New Player section of the forums:

The Academy: https://forums.galaxy-of-heroes.starwars.ea.com/categories/the-academy

Your resource for asking questions,ally code requests and Borrow a Hero threads where people are willing to let you borrow their maxed out characters such as Thrawn, Commander Luke Skywalker or General Obi Wan Kenobi as your ally toon for Light side, Dark side or Cantina battles.

https://forums.galaxy-of-heroes.starwars.ea.com/discussion/142845/new-player-index#latest – The resource sheet for new players

Guides Index: https://forums.galaxy-of-heroes.starwars.ea.com/discussion/152788/guides-index/p1
Full of links to useful information for new players, like what unlocks at each player level, guild etiquette, ship guide and more!

For Raid Tickets:
Every time your guild raids, a leader or officer has to spend a certain amount of raid tickets to start the raid. These tickets are earned by all members of a guild at the rate of 1 ticket per energy spent. Each member can generate up to 600 tickets a day; if someone is talking about "getting your 600 done" this is what they mean. You naturally get 375 regular energy and 165 cantina energy every day. This means that to reach 600 tickets every day, you will need to buy a single refresh of either regular or cantina energy. Do note that if you switch guilds, your raid ticket contribution will be reset, so your old guild will miss out and you'll start with 0 tickets for the day in your new guild.

Raid Opening/Entering
Raids can be opened by any officer or the guild leader. Raids can also be abandoned by any guild officer or the guild leader. If a raid is abandoned, the tickets used to open it will not be refunded.

Raids
Each phase of the raid has a set amount of health on the boss of that phase.The amount of health per phase depends on which type of raid- pit (rancor) or AAT (tank), and the level of raid that is opened. Heroic raids are limited to only 7* toons, while non-heroic vary depending on the level of raid opened.

Each player individually takes a team in to do damage, and then the damage is added together when they exit. For example, if 2 players enter at the same time when the raid is 100% and do 5% damage each before dying, the raid will be at 90% when they both die, although both had the full 100% available to attack. This allows for overdamage. For example, instead of doing 5% damage, each player did 75% of the damage in the phase. When they both die, the raid will move on to the next phase, as 100% of the damage of that phase was done, but both players get credit for 75%, which would be 150% of the phase, so there is 50% in overdamage.

Non-heroic raids do not have a time limit, but each guild member is limited to sending in 5 teams every 24 hours.

Heroic raids have a 48-hour time limit to complete. When you see people talking about a 24-hour no-damage period, taking a zero or sacrificing a toon, they are referring to heroic raids. While at the beginning, the raids seem very difficult, as your characters get stronger, heroic raids will become easy, with multiple players able to solo the entire rancor raid with one team (with overdamage, each gets the full amount of points for the solo, and then all scores that are the same are randomly ranked for rewards). As guild members who do not enter the raid and either achieve victory or are defeated do not receive raid rewards, the 24-hour period to send in a 7* toon to die without doing damage is to allow all guild members to get rewards.

If you have any questions or have suggestions for what type of information you would like to see included in the forums for beginner players, just let me know and I will try to get it for you.

Happy playing!