I'm going to preface this by saying that this guide, as the title states, is specifically for those like myself who are playing for free or have spent little money on the game such as $1 for the 3 Day Chun-Li rewards or $5/$3 subscription for daily rewards since they are helpful but not big enough to even make you a fish. This is my first idle game and I have managed to clear most content much further than any other F2P player on my server by doing many of the strategies laid out below. Do note that some of these things will take time and dedication if you do not want to be patient(idle) and clear content that is difficult.
I cannot stress this enough. Being a F2P player means there will come a point where we just cannot progress further. That is the point of idle games. They are designed to eventually get you to a point so you have to wait and if you don't want to then you have to spend money. Sometimes it could be a few hours or a day, but regardless, this is part of the process. This is how nearly all Gacha games work, especially in the first few months/years. If you don't want to wait, then you aren't going to be a F2P player and pay so you don't have to.
However there ARE ways to get as far as possible with things I will mention in this guide. I'm not going to go over EVERYTHING because honestly, some of it doesn't matter because RNG will be at play and it can't apply to everyone, however there ARE things you unlock in the game that will help remove RNG a bit, which I'll get into. Just keep in mind that 12 hours is the maximum wait time, so if you want to maximize your idle time, be sure to login to the game at least a few times a day every few hours to collect the idle rewards. If you're stuck and can't progress, that's really all you can do until the next day/reset.
Don't stress or overthink being competitive. If you are a F2P player you cannot be competitive. It's that simple. You just have to accept you cannot be #1 or even top 10 in most cases because those who spend money will always be ahead of you. That's just part of how these games work and anything PvP should be the last concern of yours. The ONLY thing you can be competitive in is the draft mode which is a great thing you can sink time into if you are stuck. It's completely free, gives daily rewards and extra rewards if you are ranked high. Everyone there is on the same playing field so it's the only place F2P players CAN be competitive. That said, this guide is about the overall content for F2P players and not the competitive side of the game, so I won't be touching on draft at all and more about maximizing rewards/wins in Arena and Showdown as a F2P player.
As F2P players, we are limited to our options on how we can play and how much content we can do. This is mostly because we rely on our pulls and those pulls dictate the characters that we have or want. Even if you get a Bison, Gen, or Juri, if you are not able to get more of them, they will quickly get tossed aside for other fighters who you can rank up to S and higher ranks because they won't cut it.
The first and arguably most important part of the gameplay is how you play. In the beginning playing on auto is perfectly fine, but eventually auto with no longer cut it. Playing the game manually is by far the most effective means to progress. If you are struggling on auto, switch to manual and use your fighters supers with proper timing to maximize what they can do. This can be anything from stunning/KOing character's right as they start their super to putting up shield right before being hit. There are all kinds of ways to get the most out of your characters on manual that just isnt possible on auto. I would not be one of if not THE top F2P player on my server if I wasnt playing on manual.
First strike is your best friend. I HIGHLY recommend you have a fighter in everything you do that gives you first strike. This will guarantee you get super advantage and can plan accordingly. The faster one of the fighters in your main squad of 3 is, the better. This applies to Arena and Showdown. To have the best chance, you want to make sure one of your fighters is faster than one of theirs. I will go over these characters in the fighter section.
Do not be afraid to restart a fight in any mode. This can be Challenge Mode, Supreme Fist(Tower), Shadaloo City, and Global Operation. All of these modes allow you to leave the fight and try again without any kind of penalty. Your fighters will go back to the HP they were at before you started and you can try again. Sometimes you may need to do this 10, 20, even 100 times to win, but if you want to break past a wall, it must be done. As a F2P player, trial and error is going to be a big part of getting over walls at times.
Reset, reset, reset. This game is nice in that it lets you completely reset a fighter and get everything back from them. This allows you to experiment with fighters that you have who may help you beat something you're struggling with or take levels from one fighter and move them to another. Skies the limit with this so use it. The only ones you cannot do this with are the characters you cannot level up who you are using to limit break. I recommend leaving 1 slot open at all times for limit breaks in case you need to add a fighter as an emergency or last resort.
Be smart in the arena. Because you get better rewards based on your placement you want to win as much as possible and get as high of a score as possible. ALWAYS try and fight people who's team lack 3 things: power compared to you, a faster fighter, and M. Bison. Before any fight you can always check their team and see who you will be fighting. If we see their team will get first strike or has Bison, we back out and reroll the possible fights.
We want to always have the fastest fighter because the first strike advantage is too good to not have. We avoid fighting M.Bison at all costs because the arena is auto battled, meaning you CANNOT avoid him or stop fighters from attacking him. As for the power, you want to re-roll the list of fights over and over until you find one that is weaker than you by a good margin, roughly 20% or so. This should guarantee you a win. What you also want to do is get a winnable fight but a high amount of points. This means resetting the list of fights over and over. Ive done this upward of 50+ times before to make sure I maximize my points.
What you want to do is look at your battle power and compare it to the highest battle power that is LOWER than yours and see how many points you get. Be sure to remember that battle power and point value. You then want to re-roll the list. What you are aiming for is to try and get the highest possible point value you can find but have it be against someone who's team is significantly weaker than yours. If you are at 100k battle power you, want to try and fight someone at LEAST at 85k or lower. Fighting a team at your level is too much of a risk and not worth losing. Quite often you can find people who have done well in the arena and are ranked high but they havent updated their defense team and end up being really weak, so you get a lot of points for an easy fight. More often than not you will be aiming for the fight in the middle/3rd of the 5 options but sometimes the 2nd or even 1st option will have a very weak battle power compared to you and those are a great find. Be sure to properly setup your team for maximum damage and defense. Because both teams run automatically, you wan to make sure your starting super order is solid. For instance I like to use a team of Elena>M.Ryu>Guy>Zangief. My super order is M.Ryu>Elena>Gief>M.Ryu. Guy makes me go first and gives good coverage if anyone else falls. M.Ryu deals major damage, Elena heals, and Gief tanks while also healing himself with his super.
For battle Royale, things are pretty straight forward. It's manual play only and you generally want to take your best team with you since you'll be fighting another person. A strong tank up front, 2 damage dealers, and a support. I HIGHLY recommend you take a fast character such as Chun-Li, Beast Zangief, Cammy, Guy, or Decapre equipped with the "Fast Chant" fighter soul so you likely get first strike and super advantage. Many people overlook this. If you take out one of their fighters before they can even do anything, you'll be at a HUGE advantage.
If you ever run into M.Bison in the Battle Royale, you want to avoid damaging him like the plague. This means focus on using supers that avoid him or timing supers when the other units come forward to attack or use their supers. Your goal here is to either get to a time out and have a health lead or take all the other units out and not allow his passive to activate. Sometimes this may mean you need to not complete a super chain just so you can heal. Here is an example on how to fight him. I've seen many people go into Battle Royale on auto and get wiped by a team 20 levels lower than them or because they don't know how to fight him. Don't add yourself to that list because I'm on it lol.
This is some of my favorite content in the game because it adds a fun spin on the fights while still being a challenge at times. In these modes, each fight will give you a bonus power-up for your team. The harder the fight, the better the power ups will be. I always recommend going for these power ups in this order: Attack > Life-Steal > Crit Rate > Crit Damage. The only one you would take over these is Curse which insta-kills a unit below 15% HP. The general rule of thumb in these is to defeat the enemy as fast as possible so you mitigate damage as much as you can since your fighters will carry their HP from one fight to the next.
If at any point in both Shadaloo City and Trial Grounds you lose a main fighter from your team, it's absolutely fine to leave the fight and try again. It will not kick you out, make you lose, or make you start over. It's a free chance to try again and again as often as you like.
Sometimes in Shadaloo City you can run into big single target enemies. These are great for rewards or extra powerful boosts or even get them to join your team. Since they are a single unit, it's highly recommended to use fighters who have single target attacks since they output much more damage than those who are AoE and target multiple.
In Shadaloo City, look at the tiles on the floor where you are moving. You generally want to fight the units that have the Purple floors. These are the "elite" teams who will be a little bit harder but give better boosts. Luckily unlike Trial Grounds, Shadaloo City caters the enemy levels to yours so it's rarely much of a challenge and this mode gives some of if not the best rewards in the game, so be sure to complete this as often as possible. Whenever you pick a tile, the other options for tiles will go away. What want to do is look at the tile behind each one. If moving onto one tile only lets you grab a chicken you dont need or an assist fighter, I recommend you avoid that tile if the other allows you to fight someone in a tile behind it. This is important because it CAN get hard in the third level if you kept avoiding fights and opted for the shop, chicken, or assist fighters. There will come a time however when you get far enough in the challenge stages and your team is at levels 120+ where you can get red/SS equipment from the shops in Shadaloo City at a discount. Some of these equips are VERY good and can absolutely allow you to get over a wall you are stuck at. The drawback is they cost gems, so whether or not it is worth it depends on what your team is and if the red equip being offered will even be useful to you.
When you get to the end of the second level of Shadaloo City, sometimes you will be presented with 2 portals; one purple, the other gold. ALWAYS choose the gold one as it gives better rewards at the end. This will also generally lead you to a level that has a big mechanical begging cat. I highly recommend you fight it as the rewards from it are VERY good. Use single target fighters or supers to deal maximum damage.
In Trial Ground, it is recommended to do the fighters in order of the enemy levels as each one will get progressively harder. You can select any of the fight buildings before going to them to see what their levels are a decide which one to go to next. Sometimes youll HAVE to fight harder ones first to get all of the rewards because not doing so may remove a path to get back to it or something, but if you play well they usually arent as bad as they seem up front once you factor in the boosts. Since you can run these as many times as you want, it's not the end of the world if you cant do it all in one run.
Trial Grounds are important as they give you the "Fighters Soul" items items that you can equip. They all have special stats and abilities that can help out your team. There is one however that helps out a lot and that is "Fast Chant". This one increases the speed of whoever you equip it on by 8 and also gives you extra super meter when a battle begins. So not only will this nearly guarantee that every fight you will get the first strike, but also get an extra super meter boost of 20% at the start.
Here I'm going to list off some fighters that I recommend everyone has at least one of so they can be as effective as possible at clearing the content. I'm not going to cover the ultra rare or pay to win fighters as the majority of F2P users wont get them or can't.
Mad Ryu: This one is a given and everyone has/can get him at an A+ rank for free from the 7 day Growth Package by completing the required quests. He deals out huge damage with his base/starting Super and his Super 3 which unlocks at level 61. His biggest drawback is he expends HP to use these moves. His Super 2 which is the spin kick isnt very effective and I dont recommend using it unless you absolutely have to. Once M.Ryu gets to level 121, he will gain a passive that allows him to fire off a Hadouken every time he downs another fighter. At this point he will absolutely go to town for you and suddenly you can clear content you never could before because your damage output will go through the roof. The faster you can get him to level 121 the better. He is a master of dealing massive damage to a single target. Here's an example of the passive at work.
Chun-Li: Chun-Li is great in that she is a very fast character who will almost always guarantee you get first strike. Her starting AoE move hits every target and will hit those right in front of it multiple times. This means if you time it correctly, you can catch 2 or even all 3 fighters in it and do really good damage. It also has a chance to drop the enemies defense for a time. Chun-Li as a whole doesn't output huge damage, especially compared to Ryu, so she is more of a "Support Attacker" who's main use is less about damage and more about the other options she brings to the team. If you are willing to or can, for $1 you can get the "Chun-Li Starter Pack" which will also give you some other nice things like a complete 10 pull. It doesn't make you pay 2 win or anything, but for $1 it's nearly free and gives you some nice stuff.
Beast Zangief: He will be the bread and butter of clearing content you otherwise wouldn't be able to. The reason for this is his Super 2. It's a big AoE move that has a 10% chance to stun enemies on hit and hits 7 times. However it's the first or second hit that matter. With a proper setup and timed right, you can use this super RIGHT as the enemy fighter starts theirs and stun them. What you want to do is have his Super 2 ready so as SOON as the enemy starts up their super, you can pop B.Gief's and possibly stun and interrupt them. The way the game is designed, when a super is activated the screen will go dark. It's at this moment where you want to use it as it will give him the priority and allow him to go first and get a few hits in to try and stun them. This will interrupt their super and not only stop them from using it but it completely kills their teams entire super chain. So far the only character I've seen this NOT work on is Guy, and this is because he moves to your back row and won't get hit by B.Gief. Instead, you have 2 options: use the super of the person in the back row to either move them or hit Guy with it, and the second is to time up B.Gief's Super with whoever the followup is to Guy, this way you can still stop their super chain at some point. These's fights aren't common so I've only had to use this tactic 3 times so far. Sometimes you will have to interrupt them 2 or even 3 times in a single fight but if you are willing to try over and over, you can eventually win without ever allowing a single super to go through. If there is ONE character you can borrow as a Mercenary if you never pull him, this is the one you want(unless you can get a really good Bison of course). Here are some examples: Stage 11-40, Stage 12-40
Cammy: Cammy is a big time damage dealer similar to Mad Ryu. All of her attacks have armor breaking properties to increase your damage output and hit multiple times. Her passive is also great in that you have a 50% chance after using a super for her to attack with a "trigger attack". If you set her up right she can use it two times in a single combo chain for huge damage. She is also quick so if you don't have Chun-Li, she will outspeed most enemies with a base speed of 123 and give you the first attack bonus. Her opening super is nice because if you time it right it can make the enemy whiff their super, however the same can also happen to you. Her biggest issue similar to Mad Ryu is her survivability. Because she deals so much damage out in front, she's susceptible to being taken out quickly and her passive keeps her out in front. Also because she hits so many times per super she is more likely to activate an enemy fighters counter abilities if they have them. Here's an example of her at work on Stage 10-40
Elena: Elena is pure support as her main use is to heal and give the team a defensive buff. Without her I would not have been able to clear some fights. She's great in the tag position because even back there her passive will still activate. Her passive gives 20% of her max HP to the fighter with the highest attack. This allows your damage dealers like Mad Ryu or Cammy to survive longer. At higher levels itll also increase their defense. Outside of Mad Ryu I have probably used her more than any other fighter because her use is universal.
Dhalsim & Guile: I'm putting these two together because you use them mostly the same. Both characters have great AoE damage from the back row. When it comes to clearing content that normally walls you, you generally want to avoid AoE damage as taking out one fighter at a time is much more effective for multiple reasons, but these guys have their place. Dhalsims base super deal good damage and lays a flame carpet to deal damage over time. Unfortunately the super is hit or miss and doesn't always hit as well as it could. His Super 3 however is great and it deals a ton of AoE damage and can burn the targets. However chances are I will take Mad Ryu or Cammys super 3 over his, again to remove a fighter. Guile is in a similar spot. His base super deals great damage to the front two fighters, SOMETIMES catching the rear one. He can also inflict armor break like Cammy but also gain a buff called "Saber" to ignore X% of defense. His super three does big damage with an AoE flash kick and with enough Saber buff stacks will at an extra attack to the end of it for big damage.
Honorable Mentions:
- Guy: He has decent damage and can strictly attack the back row. If he KOs a fighter his passive activates and allows him to do big damage. He has a base speed of 122 so he's a little slower than Chun-Li but still fast His Base super has a 20% chance to interrupt on the first hit so he can also be used to stop an enemy super chain dead in it's tracks. Problem is he can only do it to the unit in the back row and for some reason certain enemies in fights are immune to it where they are not immune to being stunned by B.Zangief. Even without the B.Gief stun method, guy can be used for some tricky stuff. Here's an example.
- Abel: Abel is a shield paladin. His main job is to put up shield for himself or the team to protect them from a limited amount of hits, regardless of the damage. He also has a stun that can hit the front row fighter, however because the stun takes place at the end of the animation, it's nearly impossible to use it to interrupt a super. Here's an example of Abel shield use.
- Combat Guile: His AoE damage is pretty solid and you never have to worry about it hitting everyone like you do with Dhalsim's base super or regular Guiles. His damage output isnt as high however and his Super 3 is a single target and doesn't do great damage compared to others.
- E.Honda: Another useful tank. E.Honda's main power comes from his passive and Super 3. His passive makes him immune to damage once he gets below a certain amount of HP and gives him a buff for damage reduction. The issue with this however is it last only a few seconds and it doesn't always work. If the damage dealt to him takes him from say 30% to 0 in a single hit, his passive never activates and he just dies. His super 3 puts up a projectile wall to block X amount of projectile hits for a set amount of time. The issue with this is if you arent fighting anything with projectiles it does you no good and it also wont block any if the fighter steps inside the shield when they use it. It also takes up a Super 3 slot that is better used for a heavy damage dealer.
- Zangief: Gief is another useful tank. He's about as straightforward as is gets with no gimmicks. He's all about damage reduction and forcing enemies to attacking him. This only applies to normal attacks and since Gief is always in the front, it doesnt change much with supers. His super 1 can be used to completely avoid supers and his super 2 dispels and heals for 100% of the damage dealt once you get him to level 141. His biggest issue is when you have a team and are forced to use his Super 1 cuz it can be a bit annoying by causing issues with timing because the animation is so long. Its good early on to reduce damage but later less so. His base is nice if he's the last man standing but when everyone is up it's not very useful.
Now if you don't have any of these fighters or don't like using them, that's completely fine. The important thing is you have fun and I'm sure you can do a lot of things without some of these. I will say though that Beast Zangief is THE go to fighter if you want to clear content where you are completely stuck. So when you get a chance to start recruiting mercenaries, he is the one I would recommend getting. Just remember that you can only use a mercenary to clear a challenge stage once every 5 days, so use them wisely.
When you are able to, join a Guild ASAP. Be sure to join a guild that has as many members as possible as this will increase your ability to get drops. Not only that but those guild members will allow you to use their fighters to help you out with other things within the game.
When you are on the guild screen, you should spend the necessary resources to buy all the guild tokens you can each day from the "Guild Donation". They are hard to come by and this is by far the most efficient means. I recommend focusing on buy the EX-Tokens so you can unlock that move asap. It will take some time but thats the best thing to get. Otherwise save up until the shop starts selling Red Colored gear which will unlock once you progress pass a certain point in the game.
The Guild Shadowlands is another great place to get a lot of solid materials and gems. Currently there are two different fights that can be done; Trial of Blood and Path of Fire.
Trial of Blood is a daily fight where you aim to deal as much damage as possible to waves of enemies. Each wave produces stronger enemies until they either get so strong they wipe you out or the time runs out. Each wave will drop a chest and the farther you get, the best chest drops you will receive. The goal here is to take out each wave as fast as possible. This is where a combination of AoE and single target characters are best. The early waves are weak and AoE units who can get rid of them asap thrive here. However eventually that wont be good enough and youll need single target damage to get rid of them and have a way to stay alive. I like to use Chun-Li and M.Ryu for this. Chun-Li's AoE move is EXTREMELY fast from start to finish and at level 121, M.Ryu will keep unleashing his passive over and over. Guy is good here as well because of his passive similar to M.Ryu's and Dhalsim and Guile both thrive as well with the best AoE damage in the game. Tank units generally arent needed here.
Path of Fire is a non-daily fight that can only be activated when a set number(9000) guild points has been accrued by the guild. It's for this reason as well why you want to join a completely filled guild. Like Trial of Blood, you get chest drops based on the "waves" you complete but this time to a single target. From the get go the boss here will deal big damage to everyone, so I HIGHLY recommend Elena for this to keep you alive as long as possible. Single target fighters like M.Ryu, Cammy, Fei Long, Yun, and Decapre do well here. There really isnt much of a tactic here besides just healing every turn and dealing as much damage as you can before you are either wiped out or the time runs out.
If you do not have anyone on your friends list, be sure to fill it up completely by selecting Add>Players in the friends screen. Just start selecting everyone you possibly can for now. The faster you get your friends list filled up the better. The reason for this is you can gift and receives "friend hearts" daily and you want to get as many as possible. If you are only adding people here and there, you miss out on friend hearts which means you miss out on free 10 pulls. Like guild members, these friends can also assist when you unlock the Dojo and can use mercenaries.
Mercenaries are EXTREMELY helpful when it comes to clearing content. They have no limit in the Guild Lands, Shadaloo City, or Trial Grounds. So if someone on your friends list or guild lends you use a fighter that is say 40+ levels above your fighters, then you can clean house no problem. My recommendation when selecting mercenaries is this; if you don't have Beast Zangief, that is a must for both Trial Grounds AND Challenge mode X-40 stages. The other two slots should be filled by heavy damage dealers or a support if you lack one. Don't try and request fighters who already have a bunch of requests. It's a waste of time and youll be sitting with no mercs. Instead go for those who are of a good rank, S+ or higher(for now) and have no requests. You're far more likely to have them accept your request. If you CAN get a good Bison, go for it, but chances will be slim.
Throughout the game you will get a lot of stuff that will end up in you bag. Anything ranging from chests with Fighter EXP, Break Orbs, Cash, or Gems. Fighter Fragments or mounts of the aforementioned items. This is also where your list of gear can be seen. Something to note is that there are two types of chests and items. Those which state "Not effected by mastery bonus" and those that are. What this means is whether or not it takes your current XP/Cash per minute that you receive from being idle along with your "mastery level" bonuses into consideration. These bonuses can be seen in the Mall>"Fighting VIP" and checking what you get on each level. The one's that ARE effected by your mastery will have a little clock emblem over the item whereas the ones that are not won't. If you want to maximize how much you get from these chests, I strongly encourage you wait. But for how long? Well, that depends on you. EVENTUALLY the game will get to a point where even F2P players will reach the end of the challenge stages and before they add more. This happens with every gacha game and it is inevitable. It is at that point where you would want to use all of the non-mastery bonus items/chest you have leftover as it won't increase any time soon but when more challenge stages are added you will be more than prepared. The ones that ARE affected by the mastery bonus should be used once you've mastered your mastery, which as a F2P player could take a VERY long time as most mastery EXP is given for spending money.
The other option is to use it when you are stuck or to get over a level hump that CAN make a difference like levels 60>61 or 120>121. It's not necessarily a bad time because it may help, however it's possible it may not depending on the situation. It's for these reasons why if you plan to play long term that using them at the end of the challenge stages is the optimal place to do so. At the end of the day it's up to your discretion as to how you want to use them
Last but not least I want to go over the awakening process. It's relatively simple and the game even has an automatic "smart awakening" option, however that option isn't as smart as it should be. The reason I say this is because when you do the automatic awakening, it works just fine for A rank units, but for B rank, it comes with a flaw. It will almost ALWAYS go for ranking up the same unit every single time. For example, let's say I have an A+ Ryu, A+ Dan, and A+ Sakura. Now I have already gotten a Dan up to S+ so Ive completed his bio info in the gallery and added his rank up to the "Global Awakening" event. If "smart awakening" was actually smart, it would rank up Ryu or Sakura to S rank instead of Dan. However for whatever reason(though I'm assuming because it's alphabetical), it will ALWAYS default to Dan. The only time it won't obviously is if Dan is not available.
By doing this it means you will constantly miss out on ranking up all the other B characters to S+ to get all the gems from their Bio and you wont add them to the Global Awakening event either. So instead, when you are going to rank up a B tier fighter from B+ to A and A+ to S, you want to do it manually to make sure you are ranking up the ones that need their Bio filled out.
As far as A tier fighters go, I HIGHLY recommend you do not use other A tier fighters to rank them up at the A+ and S+ and higher levels. The ONLY time you should do this is if you have multiples of that same fighter and have no use for their lower ranks any longer which won't happen or come around often. B tier fighters are specifically there to help rank up your A tiers as they are MUCH better.
That more or less covers what you REALLY need to know when it comes to maximizing your potential as a F2P player. There are other things I could talk about like the daily stuff and whatnot but then I'm just reaching into "every gacha game" territory and I could on forever about that stuff and it really needs no explanation as there's not strategy or important info needed to understand that stuff. Hope this helps!
