Intro - In a Galaxy Far, Far Away

To spend or not to spend...

Heroes are addictive as Heroines

Galactic War Squad Challenge Squads Cantina/Mod Squad L&D Squads Arena Squad Event Squads Mod Challenge Squads Raid Squad

Hitting the tables

Gear Hero Shards XP

Crystals Hero Shards Credits

Ability Mats Gear Credits

Gear Shards Credits

Credits Training Droids Hero Shards

Ability Mats Hero Shards XP

Hero Shards Ability Mats Credits

Mods Ability Mats Shards

Shipments

As a starting player you want to know what choices to make that you wont regret later. In this game it does depend on what experience you want as to the best/fastest way to achieve it. For example there is no dominant squad in PVP at the highest levels (although there are meta trends that emerge from time to time), so you will need a bit of variety and a main hit squad that appeals to you by the time you have progressed far enough.It is better to understand the choices so that you can make informed decisions and not waist time or resources early, which will help you in the long run. The best way to do that is to understand the Holotables and what value they will have in your game.For advice on what choices to make, check out the farming guide: https://forums.galaxy-of-heroes.starwars.ea.com/discussion/5353/f2p-hero-farming-guide If just starting your game, or using this guide to begin again for maximum efficiency, it is possible, and encouraged to stim to the top of your arena leaderboard the day you create your account so you can gain the benefits of the higher arena rank award crystals and get an early advantage over those in your arena.If you are already struggling to keep up in your arena, a slower approach will be required without the extra crystals earned for top 5 ranks.If you are falling further behind, and wish to be ranking higher you may find more enjoyment in restarting a new game and following an efficient min max strategy.The earlier you can decide if you like the game enough to spend money the better, because the earlier you spend it the greater the reward.At a bare minimum for fans of the game I would recommend spending (even small amounts) on crystals exclusively for energy refills as this is currently the most efficient way to increase table payouts by accelerating your early game.PvP is currently focused on the Arena table and is what I refer to as the end game. Setting up your other tables well will give you the best Arena performance.If you have decided to not spend a cent, then as tempting as it may be, you will be wasting any crystals you use on chromium packs, even if you get a Hero you can farm later, because the acceleration will not be as efficient as energy refills in the long term, and free/farmed Bronzium packs will likely get you better drops over time anyway.Exclusive chromium Heroes will just fall by the wayside, potentially sucking up gear and ability mats that you would be better off using on stronger late game Heroes you are able to promote fully, and although the other bundles can provide a bit of a boost, they are not providing much more than a weeks grinding can achieve.If you are considering spending for a crystal vault or more and don't want to waste money, feel free to send me a pm and I can assist in what will boost your game progress as efficiently as possible depending on your budget.Your decisions will all be based around what squads you want which are used on different holotables.Your focus should start with maximising the payouts of all the tables primarily which will assist most in the long run, and from there you can focus on other squads, remembering you will ultimately need more than one Arena squad, so there are many different paths to the end game as a result.This progression can be quite swift, especially if you want to spend money to accelerate your growth (less than a week).Because the current end game is based around effective Arena squads, keep that in mind as you maximise your payouts on the other tables. If you acquire a Hero earlier than expected which is known to be useful in endgame it can be more efficient to shift time and resources into them sooner rather than later.You will have several key squads for each table and they should be prioritised as follows:Once you have reached end game, very little is needed to improve squads other than your arena and raid squads, however challenge squads should not be sacrificed for arena squads unless you can rank in the top 10, which may require spending money to do early.Your key squads and Heroes can be shared across multiple tables, however I have prioritised them based on the value of the payouts from the tables. Some tables will only require limited squad upgrades to achieve the best payouts, and therefore will not need you to max out squad members. Key Heroes that are used in multiple squads across different tables become the focus of your upgrading.As you progress luck may go your way with Bronzium packs or monthly awards that can improve your squads, so depending how much time and energy you have spent on existing Heroes, it may be more efficient to leave one behind. For example, better to start upgrading a Hero that can fit into 3 squads, if you have 2/3 Heroes currently filling those positions.If you get a new Hero, even though it may be a better end game Hero, remember it will still take a lot of time and energy to max them out, so you may slow yourself down a lot to switch focus from a Hero you have already put a lot of time and energy into, even though you may replace them entirely once you have maxed stronger/rarer/newer Heroes out.It's better to have key teams with maxed out heroes before you start focusing on new ones, because it will be much easier at that stage and your previously spent time and energy has got your tables paying out their maximum, and at later levels you cannot sustain upgrading too many Heroes towards level cap.Payouts:This is where your adventure will begin and the majority of your farming will take place. Here you are restricted to light/dark side squad members so for the sake of progression it will be important for you to maintain a roster of 5 key Heroes for each side.Every time you want to change your squad it will slow you down to promote and upgrade them beyond your existing squad members (more-so past level 40) so this is where choices can start affecting your game.Your squad choices for this table wont have a huge impact until after you reach level 40, so levelling or upgrading Heroes much before this point wont hold you back too far if you sub them out of your squads as you progress, but it's still ideal to focus at any point on specific Heroes for specific reasons, and those that you will continue to use when maxed out are better options.Preserving sims early by playing easy battles on auto is very helpful if you have the time, as it is not till late game you may need fewer sims per day than you will earn.Upgrading Heroes for these L&D tables should never prioritise other tables, because you will always have plenty to farm, and quick progression here will not benefit you if you have not been upgrading your squads along the way. There will always be the temptation to just blast through the levels, but that will not give you any advantage and will slow you down overall.The main payouts for this table is gear and Hero shards, and farming these will be your primary source of XP once daily awards level out.The most significant items you will farm from this table is gear. This has the greatest impact on the power of your squads over promotions, levels, and ability upgrades. Your primary focus using energy should be to ensure that the members of your key squads have the maximum gear equipped for their level restrictions, and any gear not yet able to be equipped is ready for them once reaching the required level.Gear requirements is the best way to determine how far you should be progressed on the L&D table.Once you have equipped all the gear you are able for your key heroes you should progress to the levels needed to farm any gear you can next equip.If there is no gear currently needed then use your energy for Hero shards by progressing through the hard levels of light/dark. As hard missions are limited to 3 per day you should initially focus on shards to promote your key Heroes as quickly as possible to maximise your payouts on all tables.Once you have achieved this balance (like energy use) you may then want to focus on using excess energy for shards of the most difficult Heroes to promote, because they will take a long time to 7☆ as their shards are exclusively available through this table, so the earlier you can fully promote these Heroes the greater advantage you will have if these heroes turn out to be much stronger in future updates.While farming lower levels you can maximise your ally points and bronzium packs by auto playing battles with borrowed squad members from your allies rather than using sim tickets, remember you can still pull farmable 4☆ Heroes from Bronzium packs.Having top level allies from level 17 onwards will greatly improve your ability to clear the stages in this table without having to heavily focus on upgrading heroes you aren't using for other tables.Once you have reached level cap it is more efficient to save crystals for getting gear in shipments than to refresh energy for more than 50 crystals.- level 8Payouts:Currently this is the only table with decent payouts for crystals (especially at high ranks), however the tokens used for Hero shards are the most valuable awards for early progression if you are not able to maintain top 10 ranking.When you beat an opponent you will swap positions. The higher you go the fewer ranks you can progress with each battle.In my most recent alt account I spawned at rank 2121 and it took 33 battles to reach rank 1 (level 38) which was achieved in under 18hrs from account creation, and included one activity reset at midnight.Arenas will keep adding adding players when they create their game (with a number of AI bots) till about 15K ranks, before a new arena opens, which you can start around the 1K rank if one of the first players to spawn.Arenas used to take less than a day to fill, but now will typically take 3 days or so, but this advantage early players will have is not insurmountable with a focused strategy whether f2p or not.Although it will take more battles to reach the top ten if you spawn latter in an arena, you can hit much further ahead so it can still be done within 24hrs if you have the hours to grind it in the first day.This is the table which will be the toughest, and your main focus at end game. Here is where you will test the synergies of your Heroes to best rank and defend position.Getting in contact with others in your arena to cooperate is mutually beneficial and helps all of you maximise your arena rewards, I also find this the most enjoyable part of the game rather than ranking solo, so even if you don't cooperate with everyone you contact having a group chat in an external chat app such as Line will improve your gameplay and enjoyment.Search for your arena mates IGN or guild through google, and on this forum to make contact, and if you can't find them start a topic like this one I made for an alt account:Your defensive team is the team you have used in your last arena attack, whether you won or lost. It will use your Heroes current power levels, so if you have upgraded your Arena squad members since your last battle your defence will be stronger.I will not go deep into Arena squad strategies here, as it is vast and will largely come down to which flavour you prefer and your arenas meta.You will want to rank as high as you can as quickly as you can to maximise your daily rewards.Every member of your arena will receive rank rewards at 6pm local time so depending on how many in your timezone, will determine how much competition you have to rank.Trying to maintain 1st rank outside of your award time will only cost you unnecessary battles and refreshes, and likely cause others trying to rank at different times to target you more.Ranking in the top 10 regularly will allow you to purchase over 2 shipments of shards per day which will help keep you ranking high until the slower grinders in your arena hit max upgrades.Any rank under 5,000 will net you enough for one shipment per day including the 200 awarded from daily bonus.Early on you should spend crystals to progress as far as you can, as the earlier you raise your rank the higher the payout of the table and the fewer people that can reach you to gain rank from your position.If you can crack the top ten, be aware of what ranks can snipe you at any point so that you can position yourself smartly to reduce the chances of being sniped out. A well timed win in this part of the rankings can pay for the cost of refreshing battles or stimming cooldown, so keep 50 crystals minimum at all times for this so you don't get caught out.Shipments strategies are all grouped together at the bottom of the guide.- level 14Payout:Each day will present a certain number of challenges available for that day with 3/5 attempts at each, as you progress in level harder stages for each challenge will unlock yielding higher payouts, so you will want to be able to beat the highest levels of all challenges every day to maximise the awards.Some challenges will have class restrictions, such as tank and attacker, so you will do well to fill a squad with enough of these Heroes to gain the rewards when they come up, and using Heroes you can later max out in end game will be most efficient.You only need to level non key squad members to a point you can 3☆ the stages to then sim. Try not to waste ability mats on these Heroes at this stage unless they are key squad members for other tables as well. These should be Heroes that can assist in Galactic Wars, and L&D battles also.- level 15PayoutsGuilds are potentially the most enjoyable aspect of the game with a good guild community.As soon as you are able find a guild to start earning coins for raiding, and currency to spend at the shop.It is easy enough to join any guild, but you will get the maximum benefit of finding a good guild suitable to your level on the forums, and initially use guilds to try and get in contact with as many people in your arena to work together as possible.What is most important in a guild is regular coin banking for most frequent raids, as raid loot is the greatest rewards gained from guilds, and includes exclusive gear for heroes not able to be obtained other than from shipments for high crystal costs.The higher tier raid your guild is able to defeat the better as rewards for bottom ranks in a TVII heroic raid are better than all but top 4 ranks in a TVI raid, plus award Han Solo shards.To this end you will only want to stay in your initial guild until you promote your first 7☆ Hero before you join a guild/division that are already clearing heroic raids, and looking for weaker players join to provide heroic loot.The tiers for guild activity rewards involving spending energy are not worth the crystals required to achieve them, so if your guild is asking you to use more energy than you would otherwise be doing, find a new guild.Once you are maintaining good ranking in the arena with fully upgraded squads, your next focus should be to developing specific raid squads to improve your raid rankings and heroic loot.I am the Overseer and Academy division leader in Fear The Boot. We are the oldest guild established during the soft lauch beta test server, and have over 600 members across 11 heroic divisions, with guild reset times and raid schedules to suit players from all regions of the world, using one simple rule to make sure no one misses out on loot from any raid.We are continually growing and looking for new players keen to learn and benefit from our experience, so click the link below if you are interested.- level 20Payouts:There are a few events that cycle through, but none more important than the credit heist event, which at it's highest tier can award as much as 20M credits.So the next most important squad to build after you can rank 1st in arena for payout is a scoundrel squad for this event. This squad will also help for the regular training droid event, and crit chance mod challenges.There are heroes exclusive to events, however it is unwise to try to get these early before you can complete the highest tiers at the expense of your arena ranking. Better to have patience for these heroes to use them at 7☆ later.- level 28PayoutsThis will be one of the simpler tables to manage and a great resource for Hero shards.The energy costs increase at level 3, and the increased payout in Cantina Credits is only marginal, so initially it will be more efficient to farm shards in the first two levels until you have promoted the Heroes you are using there to 7☆ before progressing.Spending cantina energy will also be your primary source for ability mats. So another good place to use energy refills as both payout items are high value.I recommend at least two refills per day until you 7☆ your first Cantina shipment Hero.- level 40PayoutsYour primary focus once you start the game should be to get to level 40 to unlock this table as quickly as possible, which can be in as few as three days.The technique for reducing loses is fairly simple, if not arduous at lower levels when facing tough opponents, and having an expanded roster from your challenges will also assist as well.The main point to remember is that retreating and replaying a battle will have the same result unless you perform different actions due to the way the RNG works, such as using a different ability, or altering your squad composition.Having a variety of healers will assist greatly here, particularly if you are focusing on damage in the arena, as these types of heroes can do well for a few matches but will fall quickly as their HP is typically low.You can soften up enemies with weaker teams first in order for the opponent to burn specials and put on cooldown for your primary squad.Turn meter is also kept for subsequent battles so having Heroes gain some turn meter in early easier battles for using later on can be of benefit too if required.The addition of protection and mods has made this table quite difficult if you do not have a deep roster, top geared squads, and healers.The disparity between lower level squads is now much greater also, so new accounts rising will have a very tough time winning, particularly as you encounter opponents with protection and mods when your Heroes are not yet high enough in level.This is your primary source for credits which you will particularly need to stockpile from level 40 to 50 when the mod table opens.- level 50PayoutsMods are a way of customising your heroes and whilst there are many possibilities you will find ways to best mod specific Heroes as you accumulate more high quality and tier mods.Initially you will want to kit out your key squads with basic mods which aren't as expensive to upgrade as the highest mk mods you can farm from challenges.Once you have basic low mk sets you will want to acquire some standard mods of the highest mk in HP or Defensive sets to boost your heroes while you can develope the squads to farm the highest mk mods in other sets.You should make every credit purchase of gear you have less than 100 of because your energy which you would use to farm these items is valued higher than the credit costs.Anything for crystals is up to your judgement, if in doubt it's probably not worth it.Once you have hit level cap gear from here is cheaper on average in crystals than the equivalent refreshes costing 100 or more to farm.There a few schools of thought regarding what shards are best to start purchasing from arena shipments. I think it matters less who you chose, so long as you have a plan and synergies in mind.What will make the greatest impact sooner is finding a good squad to max out first before adding new characters to your roster.Once you have the roster you need to dominate the Holotables, you should then focus on individual Heroes all the way to 7☆ before starting the next, or finishing off an older Hero you needed earlier in the game but didn't need to complete.Don't underestimate the time it will take to fully upgrade all their gear, so spreading yourself thin will leave you more vulnerable as other grinders rise the Arena rankings with a more efficient and focussed strategy.If you have few Heroes and are struggling to clear the highest levels of challenges available to you, you are not maximising the payouts of that table, which in the long run will slow you down as the equipment and credits you can win there can save you days of farming, so the longer you are not maximising it the further behind you will slide.It is better to build up strong (enough) teams to complete all challenges first, as this will ultimately get you your end game maxed out heroes quicker. Just make sure you stop putting resources into squads once you are getting max payouts.Most players will go straight to certain Heroes which for one will make their Arena Squad predictable, so Heroes that can counter the obvious choices can do better, however the best options will always be the Heroes you have already managed to acquire, so long as they are not known to be underpowered.Of course it may well be that based on the Heroes you have the most common option is the best.There are a couple of very good heroes found in guild shipments which would be best to focus on before gear, however this is where it is important to be in a heroic guild to gain raid loot fast enough to maintain your arena squad power.Although mod shipment prices seem high if you find rare mods here the cost is likely less than refresh costs to farm them in challenges, however quantity is more important than quality initially.Once you have enough mod sets you can start to improve them by saving for rare mods here, as well as slowly farming them from challenges using 100 crystal refreshes.May the force be with you.