What I learned as a casual F2P player on the road to level 85
5 min read · Jun 30, 2023
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I first played SWGOH back in December 2015, and I have taken several lengthy breaks since then. Consequently, I just hit level 85 and have seen the game evolve significantly during my sporadic involvement. As a player with only 500k GP at the time of writing this, I am in no position to advise or guide most people. However, I thought it worthwhile to compile and share some of the best lessons and tips I’ve learned so far. Here are 8.5 lessons to celebrate hitting level 85.
1. Focus your farming. Farm squads/fleets rather than random characters. Faction synergy is so important in this game. Farm 1–2 characters/ships per store/energy type at a time. Focused effort will expedite your progress and give greater satisfaction. You can use the Squads and Fleets tabs to create pre-set squads, fleets, and farming lists.
2. Conserve crystals. Crystals should ONLY be spent on energy and hard node refreshes. The chromium data cards are a waste of crystals. You get a much better return on investment using crystals to buy energy or refresh nodes and further farm characters/ships/gear.
3. Maximize mods. Use the advanced mods tab. Only farm and keep five-dot mods from the tier III mod challenges once you unlock them. You will eventually slice your best five-dot mods into six-dot mods. Sell mods that don’t have a speed primary or secondary (w/rare exceptions). Speed is the most important mod stat in a turn-based game like this one. Use swgoh.gg to look up your characters, click “Best Mods” on their page, and apply the recommended mod sets for those characters.
4. Join a good guild. What constitutes a “good” guild for you will really depend on how casual or serious you want to be in the game. Bottom line is that it is important to be in a guild matching your level and ambitions. You will get a lot of important rewards by participating in guild activities, and more serious guilds can be a great source of community and advice. New players will be auto-drafted into a starter guild when you unlock guilds at level 22. You can search in-game for a better guild, and more committed players can find guild recruiting pages online.
5. Prepare for Fleet Arena at Level 60 and Grand Arena at Level 85. Currently, Fleet Area and Grand Arena are the two most important game modes. This is because they are the two greatest sources of crystal income, the most valuable currency in the game. You will want to focus early on one fleet for fleet arena, which unlocks at level 60. Preferably, your first fleet will be a dark side, Tarkin-led fleet, which is also required for the ship materials challenge. Tier III of this challenge containing the all-important zeta mats unlocks at level 78. Kill two birds with one stone. For Grand Arena, you will want to have roughly four solid, synergistic squads ready at level 85. Grand Arena is a PvP full-roster tournament-style competition and is one of the most fun game modes.
6. Squads — Character/squad farming can go so many directions, as long as you’re focused. The first graphic below shows some early core squads typically recommended by experienced players. Note that the Ewoks are only there to unlock C-3PO for the Commander Luke Skywalker team. The second graphic shows my personal current farming progression. Phoenix used to be a good starter option before Thrawn got nerfed, sadly.
7. Fleets — Ship/fleet farming is unaccelerated (fewer shards per shipment and node) and takes much longer than character farming. Consequently, it makes sense to align your ship farming with your character farming at a minimum. Some would even argue that ship farming should determine your character farming instead of vice versa. Here is my personal fleet progression. You automatically get the Tarkin, Ackbar, and Windu capital ships when you unlock fleets. Most experienced players would recommend starting a Tarkin dark side fleet for fleet arena and the level 78 zeta challenge. Then you may want to pick a light side fleet based on how you plan to progress further, as you will need two fleets for Grand Arena.
8. Make marginal gains. Here are some quick tips I’ve picked up along the journey.
- Do your daily activities. They offer decent rewards and are one of the main ways you will gain XP and level up quickly.
- If you are going to spend money on this game, the Hyperdrive Bundle is far and away the best value. Nothing else comes close.
- Always buy the gear you can purchase w/credits in the daily shipments.
- Claim the free daily chest in the web store.
- Use an auto-clicker app or Hot Utils to easily open up lots of bronzium packs with your accrued ally points.
- Know your fleet arena payout time and climb the ranks right before then if you can.
- Hoard your GET I and GET II currency for Wampa and Malevolence respectively.
- Research the best zeta and omicron abilities for your roster. They are rare mats, so be picky (i.e., Merciless Massacre, Queen’s Will).
- Expect change. Capital Games is constantly adding new characters and modifying existing ones. What was meta several years ago is an afterthought now. So be flexible, play how you want, and have fun.
8.5 — Helpful Links
- SWGOH.gg — The ultimate SWGOH resource.
- Mod primary stats by slot — Good graphic and some helpful comments in the thread.
- Galaxy of Zeroes Podcast — “The Best Podcast (Probably) for Early and Mid Game Players”
- AhnaldT101 Oct. 2022 Character Rankings
- AhnaldT101 Sept. 2022 Ship Rankings
- AhnaldT101 Apr. 2023 Squad Rankings
- Star Wars Dad Farming Guide
- Darth Loquitur In-depth Farming Guide
Thanks for reading. Enjoy the game!
My ally code: 519–644–757. My SWGOH account.
