Step-by-step F2P Guide
This is going to be a journal of playing SWGOH free-to-play from level 1. I've read/watched a lot of advice for new players, but nothing that takes the player through the leveling process. The long...
Forum Discussion
++++++++++Levels 40 to 49+++++++++++++++
Galactic War is unlocked! Yeah! This is a huge source of crystals and Ability Materials. Galactic War is like twelve Squad Arena battles in a row with the characters being the same at the start at the new battle as they were at the end of the previous battle. A full Phoenix team has no problems with Galactic War.
My advice for Galactic War is very similar to that for Squad Arena. Additional advice is:
* I do each battle manually as the AI won't set up properly for the next battle
* It's very important to be close to full health at the end of each battle
* When I have the other squad down to one hero, I usually use only my basic attacks and heals
* It's important to know what each opponent hero does. Before each battle, I check out the other squad and if I see a hero that I’m not familiar with, I’ll check them out before I start the battle
* If I've made some mistakes or the battle isn't going well, I’ll retreat and try again. Retreat is a choice from the menu when I click on the gear in the upper left
* If there's a team I can't defeat, I’ll send my second best set of heroes and have them do as much damage as possible. Then hopefully my main team can then win the battle
* Having Chewie be the last hero standing is usually a good thing as he'll frequently do Defiant Roar when he's all alone and it's his turn to attack. That gives my team more time to heal/reduce cooldown timers without taking damage
* The sixth battle is typically much harder than the preceding and following battles
I'm going with a team of Lando, Ezra, Hera, Chopper and Jedi Consular. Jedi Consular is to keep the team at full health. I made a mistake with this run. I should have fought a few easy battles, stopped and then waited until I unlocked Kanan and gained another level before continuing. Instead, I used my second best heroes to soften up the sixth battle and then continued to the 11th battle. The opponents there are all level 43 and Hera is down to one-third health. Now, I've stopped and waited. I'm going to take advantage of that I don't have to complete a Galactic War in 24 hours; in fact I can take 47 hours to complete it and still complete the next.
Squad arena: I'm seeing teams where the player obviously spent money; having characters like Darth Vader and Asaji Ventress. Consequently, I'm having to pick and choose fights. Even players at my level are more powerful then me. I defeated #244, #209, #182, #167 and #149.
When I got my Squad Arena award, I unlocked Kanan and geared him up to V, hitting level 41 as I did so. I used him instead of Jedi Consular and made Hera the leader, and was able to win the last two battles of Galactic War.
Tonight, I'll unlock Zeb and will have a full Phoenix team for my Squad Arena battles. I should be able to advance really well after that. I started acquiring gear for Zeb so I'll be able to take him to Gear V right away. I'm tempted to fight a SA battle now so that I can set my SA squad to Hera, Lando, Ezra, Kanan and Chopper. I've been pushed out to #346 with my current squad.
I did the initial First Order Basic Training Event and got some shards. I got Hera and Chopper to 3*.
I hit level 42, finished the the Fleet Commander Training: Grand Moff Tarkin event and unlocked Grand Moff Tarkin. He's going to be the leader of my Dark Side team for a very long time.
I unlocked Zeb, finished my GW run and then did SA. I started at #345, defeated #294, #248, #211, #182 and #158.
The joy of having made the right decision
At first glance, it'll be really hard for me to make the top 50 of Squad Arena. My team's power is 11,126 and the three possible matches I'm looking at all have a power of more than 14K. I'm level 42 and #50 is level 46 with a 5* Chewie, a 5* Talia, a 5* Darth Vader, a 5* Jedi Consular and a 4* Kylo Ren. But these teams have two problems - they have no synergy and they're not going to be able to keep up with my increases in stars. Because I use all four easy sources of shards (Cantina table, Cantina Battles Store, Squad Arena Store and Galactic War Store), I'll average 10-15 shards for each hero per day. Because my team will gain stars so quickly, I'll will eventually surpass non-Phoenix teams.
Level 43
I took Hera, Chopper and Zeb to Gear VI. In SA, I started at #158, defeated #133, #116, #105, #92 and #77. I promoted Kanan to 3*.
I've cleared all of the Hard Node so I'm going to start farming Hard nodes I've already cleared. The first such node is Dark Side 1-A for Sabine shards. I currently have one. I want Sabine as she'll be a crew member of the Phanton II, but it'll be at least level 64 before I unlock the Phantom II so there isn't a big rush.
I got Poggle the Lesser from a Bronzium Data Card. He's very weak for a 4* hero, but he's better than Snowtrooper, who gets bumped for my Dark Side team.
Level 44
I took Ezra and Kanan to Gear VI. All of the Phoenix team is now Gear VI. I promoted Zeb to 3*, so the whole squad is 3*.
I got Embo in an event, giving me a third Scoundrel of at least 3*. Yeah! He'll bump Royal Guard off of my Dark Side team once I get him some gear.
Did Light Side Stage 5 unlock this level or last level? I started clearing nodes on Stage 5 and quickly reached the point where I could only get a 3* win with the help of a high-level ally.
The importance of guild to gearing
Now that my Phoenix team is Gear VI, all of them have 4-5 gear slots that take at least 20 of the same gear to fill. If the only way you acquire those items is through grinding, then it will take a huge amount of grinding.
Upcoming gear needs:
Level 48 - 60 Mk 4 SoroSuub Keypad Salvage
Level 49 - 80 Mk 4 A/KT Stun Gun and 100 Mk 5 SoroSuub Keypad Salvage
Level 50 - 60 Mk 4 Arakyd Droid Caller Salvage
Level 51 - 40 Mk 4 CEC Fusion Furnance Prototype Salvage, 30 Mk 5 Nubian Security Scanner Prototype Salvage, 120 Mk 5 SoroSuub Keypad Salvage and 30 Mk 6 Loronar Power Cell Salvage
Level 52 - 60 Mk 6 BioTech Implant Prototype Salvage
Level 53 - 20 Mk 4 SoroSuub Keypad Salvage and 20 Mk 8 BlasTech Weapon Mod Prototype Salvage
Those are all purple gear. I think the gear I've been encountering before purple drops one out of every three battles. I'd guess that purple gear drops one out of every six battles. If you do the math, that's lots of battles.
To make gaining all the gear easier, I'm going to be utilizing all possible sources of gear. Challenges are a source, but until level 62 only Mk 4 SoroSuub Keypad Salvage from that list drop in Challenges. The two sources I'm going to discuss are Guild gear requests and the Guild Store. Every 24 hours, I can request gear from my guildies and for the foreseeable future, I'm going to be requesting something every day on the above list. The best items to ask for are the Mk 4 SoroSuub Keypad Salvage, the Mk 4 A/KT Stun Gun, the Mk 5 SoroSuub Keypad Salvage and the Mk 4 Arakyd Droid Caller Salvage as those are given in Challenges. Also, I'm going to buy items on that list from the Guild Store whenever I can.
Defeating Phoenix Teams
In today's SA battles, I mostly fought Phoenix squads similar to mine. Here's my advice to defeating them:
* I always start by attacking Hera and I almost always kill her first. I might kill someone else if they somehow get really low on health and I think I can kill them before Hera can use Backup Plan on them. I go after Hera first because I don't want to get close to killing someone and then have Hera cast Backup Plan on them
* My opponent has two heroes who put up Taunt - Chopper and Kanan. I have two ways of removing Taunt - Chopper's Metal Menance and Ezra' Flourish. Early one, I save those two attacks for Taunt removal
* Because Phoenix self heals and can provide protection to each other, it's about slowly grinding down each hero
* Once I kill Hera, I normally kill Chopper next and then Kanan. By doing that, I don't have to waste turns removing Taunt from Chopper and Kanan. If someone is really low on health, I'll try to capitalize on that but it rarely happens
* One thing I don't want to do is run out of time. If I get under two minutes left, I'll typically press AUTO as that attacks much faster than I can
Fleet Crew
When I hit level 45, I unlocked another fleet event and got the Geonosian Soldier and his ship. I'll eventually get one more ship, the Clone Sergeant's ARC-170. When I start fleet battles, I'll use four non-capital ships so one non-capital ship won't be used. Based on my experience with my prior run, I'm going to bench the Resistance X-Wing. I discovered the hard way that it's a terrible ship. The AI attacks it first and it frequently dies in the first round of shooting. Once it dies, I'm a ship down in the battle and am well on the way to losing. In the little testing I've done, when I use the Geonosian Soldier's ship instead of the Resistance X-Wing, the AI attacks the Jedi Consular's ship and that's lasts much longer.
Level 45
I got Ezra up to 4*. The lowest level of the unequipped gear for my Phoenix team is level 48, so I'm going to focus on gearing up my Dark Side team for the next couple of levels. Well, only Grand Moff Tarkin, TIE Fighter Pilot and Embo as they are the only Dark Side heroes with a future.
So far, I've been really short on green ability materials. I've been maxing the basic attack and unique ability of my Phoenix team members and haven't been able to upgrade much the other abilities. I've finally gotten all abilities up to level 2. Watch and Learn is at level 3. I think I'll stop upgrading there and save my ability materials for level 46 when I can upgrade basic attacks again.
SA: Just wow - the player at #94 is level 44 and has a 7* Darth Nihilus, a 7* Darth Sidious, a 6* Darth Maul, a 6* Count Dooku and a 5* Darth Vader. #64 is level 45 and has a 7* Bastila Shan, a 7* Lando, a 5* Darth Vader, a 5* Bobba Fett and a 5* Jedi Knight Anakin. No one in the top 50 have a 7* leader, but I'm guessing those two will be in the top 50 shortly.
Level 46
I've hit the point that I have excess green ability materials. Time to start upgrading the abilities of my Dark Side heroes.
I got Zeb to 4*.
Level 47
I got Chopper, Kanan and Hera to 4*, brining the whole team to 4*. It'll be a long time before I get another star.
Level 48
I'm getting pushed back hard recently in Squad Arena (Day 10 and 11) and that's not surprising. One reason is that there's very little difference between Phoenix teams at this point. We all have basically the same number of stars and the same gear. I can beat almost any level 48 Phoenix team and almost any level 48 Phoenix team can beat me. The other reason I’m getting pushed back so much is that I'm getting close to level 50 and at level 50 mods are unlocked. Mods provide quite a boost to heroes. So players who are level 50 and had a so-so squad at level 49 suddenly have a squad better than those under level 50.
Level 49
I fought a Nightsisters team in Squad Arena.
Advice for defeating Nightsister teams
* I fought a team of Mother Talzin, Old Daka, Asaji Ventruss, Nightsister Acolyte and Nightsister Zombie
* I always kill Old Daka first as she has an ability to revive defeated Nightsisters
* I next kill Mother Talzin as she does so much damage
* After that, I attack Nightsister Acolyte whenever she isn't stealthed
* When it's down to Nightsister Acolyte and Nightsister Zombie, I hit AUTO until Nightsister Acolyte loses stealth and then I hit her with everything I can. If she goes stealth again, I hit AUTO again
Status:
* Level 49
* 26 heroes
* Phoenix stars: Chopper, Ezra, Hera, Kanan and Zeb are all 4*. Sabine 12 shards
* Gear: Phoenix team plus TIE Fighter Pilot are at Gear VI; Grand Moff Tarkin and Lando are at V; Embo, Jedi Consular, Talia, Clone Sergeant and Royal Guard are at IV
* 4M+ credits
Galactic War is unlocked! Yeah! This is a huge source of crystals and Ability Materials. Galactic War is like twelve Squad Arena battles in a row with the characters being the same at the start at the new battle as they were at the end of the previous battle. A full Phoenix team has no problems with Galactic War.
My advice for Galactic War is very similar to that for Squad Arena. Additional advice is:
* I do each battle manually as the AI won't set up properly for the next battle
* It's very important to be close to full health at the end of each battle
* When I have the other squad down to one hero, I usually use only my basic attacks and heals
* It's important to know what each opponent hero does. Before each battle, I check out the other squad and if I see a hero that I’m not familiar with, I’ll check them out before I start the battle
* If I've made some mistakes or the battle isn't going well, I’ll retreat and try again. Retreat is a choice from the menu when I click on the gear in the upper left
* If there's a team I can't defeat, I’ll send my second best set of heroes and have them do as much damage as possible. Then hopefully my main team can then win the battle
* Having Chewie be the last hero standing is usually a good thing as he'll frequently do Defiant Roar when he's all alone and it's his turn to attack. That gives my team more time to heal/reduce cooldown timers without taking damage
* The sixth battle is typically much harder than the preceding and following battles
I'm going with a team of Lando, Ezra, Hera, Chopper and Jedi Consular. Jedi Consular is to keep the team at full health. I made a mistake with this run. I should have fought a few easy battles, stopped and then waited until I unlocked Kanan and gained another level before continuing. Instead, I used my second best heroes to soften up the sixth battle and then continued to the 11th battle. The opponents there are all level 43 and Hera is down to one-third health. Now, I've stopped and waited. I'm going to take advantage of that I don't have to complete a Galactic War in 24 hours; in fact I can take 47 hours to complete it and still complete the next.
Squad arena: I'm seeing teams where the player obviously spent money; having characters like Darth Vader and Asaji Ventress. Consequently, I'm having to pick and choose fights. Even players at my level are more powerful then me. I defeated #244, #209, #182, #167 and #149.
When I got my Squad Arena award, I unlocked Kanan and geared him up to V, hitting level 41 as I did so. I used him instead of Jedi Consular and made Hera the leader, and was able to win the last two battles of Galactic War.
Tonight, I'll unlock Zeb and will have a full Phoenix team for my Squad Arena battles. I should be able to advance really well after that. I started acquiring gear for Zeb so I'll be able to take him to Gear V right away. I'm tempted to fight a SA battle now so that I can set my SA squad to Hera, Lando, Ezra, Kanan and Chopper. I've been pushed out to #346 with my current squad.
I did the initial First Order Basic Training Event and got some shards. I got Hera and Chopper to 3*.
I hit level 42, finished the the Fleet Commander Training: Grand Moff Tarkin event and unlocked Grand Moff Tarkin. He's going to be the leader of my Dark Side team for a very long time.
I unlocked Zeb, finished my GW run and then did SA. I started at #345, defeated #294, #248, #211, #182 and #158.
The joy of having made the right decision
At first glance, it'll be really hard for me to make the top 50 of Squad Arena. My team's power is 11,126 and the three possible matches I'm looking at all have a power of more than 14K. I'm level 42 and #50 is level 46 with a 5* Chewie, a 5* Talia, a 5* Darth Vader, a 5* Jedi Consular and a 4* Kylo Ren. But these teams have two problems - they have no synergy and they're not going to be able to keep up with my increases in stars. Because I use all four easy sources of shards (Cantina table, Cantina Battles Store, Squad Arena Store and Galactic War Store), I'll average 10-15 shards for each hero per day. Because my team will gain stars so quickly, I'll will eventually surpass non-Phoenix teams.
Level 43
I took Hera, Chopper and Zeb to Gear VI. In SA, I started at #158, defeated #133, #116, #105, #92 and #77. I promoted Kanan to 3*.
I've cleared all of the Hard Node so I'm going to start farming Hard nodes I've already cleared. The first such node is Dark Side 1-A for Sabine shards. I currently have one. I want Sabine as she'll be a crew member of the Phanton II, but it'll be at least level 64 before I unlock the Phantom II so there isn't a big rush.
I got Poggle the Lesser from a Bronzium Data Card. He's very weak for a 4* hero, but he's better than Snowtrooper, who gets bumped for my Dark Side team.
Level 44
I took Ezra and Kanan to Gear VI. All of the Phoenix team is now Gear VI. I promoted Zeb to 3*, so the whole squad is 3*.
I got Embo in an event, giving me a third Scoundrel of at least 3*. Yeah! He'll bump Royal Guard off of my Dark Side team once I get him some gear.
Did Light Side Stage 5 unlock this level or last level? I started clearing nodes on Stage 5 and quickly reached the point where I could only get a 3* win with the help of a high-level ally.
The importance of guild to gearing
Now that my Phoenix team is Gear VI, all of them have 4-5 gear slots that take at least 20 of the same gear to fill. If the only way you acquire those items is through grinding, then it will take a huge amount of grinding.
Upcoming gear needs:
Level 48 - 60 Mk 4 SoroSuub Keypad Salvage
Level 49 - 80 Mk 4 A/KT Stun Gun and 100 Mk 5 SoroSuub Keypad Salvage
Level 50 - 60 Mk 4 Arakyd Droid Caller Salvage
Level 51 - 40 Mk 4 CEC Fusion Furnance Prototype Salvage, 30 Mk 5 Nubian Security Scanner Prototype Salvage, 120 Mk 5 SoroSuub Keypad Salvage and 30 Mk 6 Loronar Power Cell Salvage
Level 52 - 60 Mk 6 BioTech Implant Prototype Salvage
Level 53 - 20 Mk 4 SoroSuub Keypad Salvage and 20 Mk 8 BlasTech Weapon Mod Prototype Salvage
Those are all purple gear. I think the gear I've been encountering before purple drops one out of every three battles. I'd guess that purple gear drops one out of every six battles. If you do the math, that's lots of battles.
To make gaining all the gear easier, I'm going to be utilizing all possible sources of gear. Challenges are a source, but until level 62 only Mk 4 SoroSuub Keypad Salvage from that list drop in Challenges. The two sources I'm going to discuss are Guild gear requests and the Guild Store. Every 24 hours, I can request gear from my guildies and for the foreseeable future, I'm going to be requesting something every day on the above list. The best items to ask for are the Mk 4 SoroSuub Keypad Salvage, the Mk 4 A/KT Stun Gun, the Mk 5 SoroSuub Keypad Salvage and the Mk 4 Arakyd Droid Caller Salvage as those are given in Challenges. Also, I'm going to buy items on that list from the Guild Store whenever I can.
Defeating Phoenix Teams
In today's SA battles, I mostly fought Phoenix squads similar to mine. Here's my advice to defeating them:
* I always start by attacking Hera and I almost always kill her first. I might kill someone else if they somehow get really low on health and I think I can kill them before Hera can use Backup Plan on them. I go after Hera first because I don't want to get close to killing someone and then have Hera cast Backup Plan on them
* My opponent has two heroes who put up Taunt - Chopper and Kanan. I have two ways of removing Taunt - Chopper's Metal Menance and Ezra' Flourish. Early one, I save those two attacks for Taunt removal
* Because Phoenix self heals and can provide protection to each other, it's about slowly grinding down each hero
* Once I kill Hera, I normally kill Chopper next and then Kanan. By doing that, I don't have to waste turns removing Taunt from Chopper and Kanan. If someone is really low on health, I'll try to capitalize on that but it rarely happens
* One thing I don't want to do is run out of time. If I get under two minutes left, I'll typically press AUTO as that attacks much faster than I can
Fleet Crew
When I hit level 45, I unlocked another fleet event and got the Geonosian Soldier and his ship. I'll eventually get one more ship, the Clone Sergeant's ARC-170. When I start fleet battles, I'll use four non-capital ships so one non-capital ship won't be used. Based on my experience with my prior run, I'm going to bench the Resistance X-Wing. I discovered the hard way that it's a terrible ship. The AI attacks it first and it frequently dies in the first round of shooting. Once it dies, I'm a ship down in the battle and am well on the way to losing. In the little testing I've done, when I use the Geonosian Soldier's ship instead of the Resistance X-Wing, the AI attacks the Jedi Consular's ship and that's lasts much longer.
Level 45
I got Ezra up to 4*. The lowest level of the unequipped gear for my Phoenix team is level 48, so I'm going to focus on gearing up my Dark Side team for the next couple of levels. Well, only Grand Moff Tarkin, TIE Fighter Pilot and Embo as they are the only Dark Side heroes with a future.
So far, I've been really short on green ability materials. I've been maxing the basic attack and unique ability of my Phoenix team members and haven't been able to upgrade much the other abilities. I've finally gotten all abilities up to level 2. Watch and Learn is at level 3. I think I'll stop upgrading there and save my ability materials for level 46 when I can upgrade basic attacks again.
SA: Just wow - the player at #94 is level 44 and has a 7* Darth Nihilus, a 7* Darth Sidious, a 6* Darth Maul, a 6* Count Dooku and a 5* Darth Vader. #64 is level 45 and has a 7* Bastila Shan, a 7* Lando, a 5* Darth Vader, a 5* Bobba Fett and a 5* Jedi Knight Anakin. No one in the top 50 have a 7* leader, but I'm guessing those two will be in the top 50 shortly.
Level 46
I've hit the point that I have excess green ability materials. Time to start upgrading the abilities of my Dark Side heroes.
I got Zeb to 4*.
Level 47
I got Chopper, Kanan and Hera to 4*, brining the whole team to 4*. It'll be a long time before I get another star.
Level 48
I'm getting pushed back hard recently in Squad Arena (Day 10 and 11) and that's not surprising. One reason is that there's very little difference between Phoenix teams at this point. We all have basically the same number of stars and the same gear. I can beat almost any level 48 Phoenix team and almost any level 48 Phoenix team can beat me. The other reason I’m getting pushed back so much is that I'm getting close to level 50 and at level 50 mods are unlocked. Mods provide quite a boost to heroes. So players who are level 50 and had a so-so squad at level 49 suddenly have a squad better than those under level 50.
Level 49
I fought a Nightsisters team in Squad Arena.
Advice for defeating Nightsister teams
* I fought a team of Mother Talzin, Old Daka, Asaji Ventruss, Nightsister Acolyte and Nightsister Zombie
* I always kill Old Daka first as she has an ability to revive defeated Nightsisters
* I next kill Mother Talzin as she does so much damage
* After that, I attack Nightsister Acolyte whenever she isn't stealthed
* When it's down to Nightsister Acolyte and Nightsister Zombie, I hit AUTO until Nightsister Acolyte loses stealth and then I hit her with everything I can. If she goes stealth again, I hit AUTO again
Status:
* Level 49
* 26 heroes
* Phoenix stars: Chopper, Ezra, Hera, Kanan and Zeb are all 4*. Sabine 12 shards
* Gear: Phoenix team plus TIE Fighter Pilot are at Gear VI; Grand Moff Tarkin and Lando are at V; Embo, Jedi Consular, Talia, Clone Sergeant and Royal Guard are at IV
* 4M+ credits
