Daily Login #20, Total 58.5 Hours Played. My Full Collection and Progress.
(Find my Day 10 progress here).
All my progress and plans are logged in meticulous detail in this spreadsheet, and it is full of tips as well.
Really, since the re-introduction of ads in 3.4, my method to progress has changed drastically from what I originally posted about in my beginner's guide and my original method to progress. One thing remains the same: I am placing a heavy emphasis on gears before character promotions.
Except this time, I'll be logging the progress in much more detail on the spreadsheet so others can follow along. One of my later goals is to compile all of the tips found on the spreadsheet and my progression method beyond early-game into an updated beginner's guide or collection of guides.
Now, on to my method of progressing!
Table of Contents
- Collection
- When to stop promoting characters?
- Story Mode
- Getting to Battle 49
- How to Grind Credits
- Survivor
- How Much to Play, General Tips
- Getting to Fight 12
- Gears
- Discussion of 4 → 5 Star Gears
- A Guide to 3 → 4 Star Gears
- A Guide to 1 → 2 and 2 → 3 Star Gears
- Online Battles (MP)
- Other Modes, Concluding Thoughts
Collection
You can see I've avoided promoting characters almost entirely. The only promotions I've spent credits on so far in the game are Regime Flash to E7 and Prime Flash to E7. The rest of my characters have come from challenge mode, pack openings, and free rewards from story mode battles. Suicide Squad challenge rewards have given me extra golds from the gold packs. I've entirely avoided buying gold/silver packs to hunt for specific characters (for challenge requirements) for now because I don't want to rely on any chance.
Nearly all character purchases made at this point of the game are made for challenge requirements. You can see in my spreadsheet that I did make a few purchase of strong silvers early on in order to start leveling them early, but afterwards I purchased MoS Supes for unlock only to get a Superman character for JCR's challenge. For next week's challenge (DoJ Supes), I'll have to purchase a Zod and a Doomsday soon in order to finish at least up to expert difficulty of the challenge. Unfortunately for this week (SS HQ), Raven is too hard to obtain and so I'm unable to complete expert difficulty. This spreadsheet here is very helpful to plan out future grinding. For how to obtain characters, check out the bottom table of the characters page of the wiki.
When is it a good idea to stop promoting?
I stopped after I was able to do these things:
- Defeat at least the first two fights of Bonus Battle 6 [See more on this in the story mode section].
- Complete, at the minimum, up to the first 3 stages of Nightmare Difficulty of challenges.
- I have skipped the last battle of expert difficulty for my first two challenges as it was too hard, but will be able to attempt it now.
- Rank Top 5% in MP. (I made it to top 3% on my second MP season, but that's not necessary).
I strongly believe that only promoting Flash/Regime and Flash/Prime is the one of the most efficient ways to go about this, and one doesn't even need to promote them to E7 as I have! However, I'm able to do these things with such a minimal collection only because I know how to abuse Flash's infinite well after experience and practice, which a true new player will need some time to gain/learn.
Story Mode
With just this mere collection I have been able to beat all of Pages 1-6 and up to Battle 49. How? Almost entirely thanks to Flash's infinite juggle. I explain how to do it here. Other characters that were very helpful were Regime Green Lantern (his passive is bugged to provide +50% team power gen instead of +25%), Prime Batman (+25% damage boost), and Regime Black Adam + Joker/Prime for bosses. (You can see the true power of Regime BA here). I've recorded many last matches of Page 6 which I'll hopefully release in the future in one all in one story mode video. What was also helpful was LexCorp Chest Armor--when combined with my Mark of Lady Shiva I am able to achieve a total of 100% crit chance on basics. Not to mention, the lifedrain on SP2 effect is extremely helpful, as it can essentially restore a full health bar in the middle of the match.
Past Battle 49, it is quite difficult to progress with low-promoted characters without DOT gears, so for now I've stopped trying to progress further in story mode, after possibly attempting BB7 sometime soon. Beating Page 7 matches don't matter as much though, as for now I've unlocked BB6, one key battle. Now, I've been trying to grind credits for gear upgrades.
How to Grind Credits
Thanks to ads which were re-introduced in 3.4, grinding credits without recharges has become much more practical in early game. Grinding credits should be a balance of finishing matches quickly and getting a decent amount of credits from matches--sometimes the hardest battle you can finish might not be the most efficient for gaining more credits in the least amount of time. One needs to find the best balance of grinding on their own after experimentation.
The Injustice Levels spreadsheet contains credit efficiencies for all battles on Pages 1-7. The three best places to grind early/mid-game are:
- Bonus Battle 6
- Battle 32
- Bonus Battle 5
If you are unable to beat these levels, refer to the spreadsheet and pick battles you can complete. For grinding BB6, you don't need to be able to complete the whole battle in order to grind credits efficiently. The mirror match just needs a team of bronzes, where at least 1 bronze is at E6 or E7 and high level. I use Bronze Flash and two other bronzes. The 3rd match of BB6 is often tough because of Regime Flash, and so even if you are unable to do past the first 2 fights consistently, do the first 2 fights anyway and restart the battle (click into another battle and then go back to BB6). You get 365 credits/energy spent for 1950+4620 credits while using 18 total bars of power, still beating the other battles in terms of cred efficiency.
Now, how to grind credits quickly without recharges? I suggest making use of a few "carry cards" that are able to solo an entire battle on their own. Use these cards alongside 2 other random cards from your collection with energy to work your way through battles. After all of your carry cards are out of energy, put them all on one team and then use ads to recharge just the carry cards to use them again in the same fashion.
For example, what I've been doing at this stage of the game is using a few "carry cards" that are able to complete all of Battle 32 on their own, and also using my Flashes for the first two fights of Bonus Battle 6. In Battle 32, I use Jessica Cruz, Suicide Squad Deadshot, and Earth 2 Flash as my carry cards (these are my higher damage cards), and team them each with 2 random cards with energy that I need to level. In BB6, for the mirror match I use Bronze Flash as a carry teamed with 2 random bronzes with energy, and then for the second fight I use Regime Flash, Regime Green Lantern, and just another random card I need to level. Of course, I am using LexCorp Chest Armor and Mark of Lady Shiva on my cards to make all cards' basics more effective.
When my carry cards are out of energy, I put them together into a team and watch ads to refill the energy of only my carry characters.
Survivor
Playing lots of survivor is key to getting gears and shards. On my first few days, I was only playing to the point where I would break even on rewards and credit cost. Usually this would be 2 runs. However, after I was able to unlock BB6 and had some spare credits, I spent it on playing survivor buy-ins for a total of 4-5 runs of survivor a day (starting from Day 16). I am only buying in so many rounds because I am able to get past Fight 10 consistently--if my rewards were less (because I could not get to later rounds), then I wouldn't be spending as many resources on survivor just yet and instead trying to improve my collection to the point where I can beat Round 9 at least.
You also get Augments from survivor. Augments are a very hard-to-grind resource in late-game, and so they shouldn't go to waste. At this point, besides XP Augments it is best to save these until you really know what you are doing. I've written up what characters I recommend augmenting here.
A few tips and tricks to maximize rewards:
- Controlling the survivor wheel: You can read this guide by Skopos on how to do it.
- Avoiding HA HA HA: You can avoid the HA HA HA spot (which rewards you nothing) by holding down your finger and letting go immediately after you see the HA HA HA spot light up. You will most likely land on the spot that lights up immediately after.
But the main way to get more rewards is by getting to further rounds. Before one has lots of gears, it can be difficult to get to later rounds without strong characters. This is the primary strategy I was using early on to get up to R12 without golds or any gear, making full use of Flash's infinite. The strategy is explained in my comment of that post in more detail.
Currently, I have been using Flash/Prime, Nightwing/Regime, and Lex Luthor/Prime on the early rounds, and once they die I sub in Flash/Regime and Green Lantern/Regime. These teams have a great combination of good jugglers and power-draining characters. The jugglers can mostly carry the game on their own, and power-draining characters can be quite useful from time to time to avoid death, as the enemies get very strong and their specials hit hard. Nightwing/Regime, in particular, is built for surviving long thanks to his passive and SP1 power drain. To be safe, I don't usually use up all three reserves because once all your reserves are knocked out, you lose the jackpot you have accumulated and immediately go to the Last Laugh minigame.
At this stage, I've used LexCorp Chest Armor's lifedrain effect to regain health in the earlier rounds after doing SP2s, and have equipped Fourth World Chestplate + Helmet on a different character to make use of the resurrection effect to save an character from dying. These things can both help save on health boost costs on early rounds.
Gears
I focus on gears because they can provide a massive boost to characters, with specific combinations of DOT gears allowing even bronze characters to deal millions of damage on their own (like this). In early game, one won't have many gears just yet, and so the focus needs to be on preparing for upgrading gears as you get them later.
There are 4 levels of rarity for gears, what I'll call 1 → 2 Star gears, 2 → 3 Star gears, 3 → 4 Star gears, and 4 → 5 Star gears. For understanding how gear-fusing works, I suggest reading the gears page on the wiki. It's also important to understand how all the various gears work, and once again the wiki is crucial to gain this knowledge.
A neater version of this gears section below can be found on my spreadsheet here. It's easier to follow there. Read it there instead of here.
4 → 5 Star Gears
For 4 → 5 Star gears, there are 2 categories of them: MP gears and Survivor Gears.
MP gears are earned through ranking top 5% or above in their respective seasons. Some gears are better than others, but a general rule of thumb is to always go for Top 5% or more on a gear season if you don't have a gear.
There is a small chance to get these gears (and survivor gears) from 400/800 Nth Packs, but the chance is too low to rely on.
Survivor gears come in sets, and have a chance of dropping from the last laugh minigame in survivor. The drop rates of the gears vary per set. Most sets have a most common piece (dropping very often from LL tickets) and a chase piece (low drop rate, hard to obtain). The Fourth World, LexCorp, and League of Assassins survivor gears are all fused with almost entirely green/blue shards.
Higher-fused gears give more bonus shards upon shattering them, so it's a good idea to max out the most common dropping pieces (4W Chestplate, Lex Chest Armor, LoA Blade) in order to get more green/blue shards from shattering extras later. In particular, Lex Chest Armor and LoA Blade are very useful gears and you should consider fusing them up to max early on for more shards later. You can see I've maxed out my Chest Armor, and am currently earning hundreds of shards each time I get a new one and shatter the extra.
3 → 4 Star Gears
There are a lot of 3 → 4 star gears. It's very expensive to fuse them all, and a lot of them have extremely niche uses. I've noted down on my spreadsheet the gears with what I consider to be powerful, versatile or unique/interesting effects, and these are the only gears I myself am going to even consider fusing for a long time.
However, there are a few that are very helpful at different stages of the game. Specifically:
- Basic Damage Boost + Basic Crit Gear:
- Blade of the War God
- Netherrealm Kama
- Promethium Longsword
- Powered Eskrima Sticks.
These are the most useful of all, and it is best to fuse up 2 of these early-game, and 1 more late-game. I would pick Eskrima Sticks and Promethium Longsword if you have them first for their third effects, and Blade of The War God later.
- SP1 Heal + Basic Damage Gear:
- Knife Collection
- Mutated Bone Spikes
Good to fuse 1 of these early-game; they're great for survivor. They both provide unblockable on basics for their respective characters, but I'd pick Mutated Bone Spikes (Doomsday) for his better basics.
- Other Gears with Good Late-Game Uses:
- Hyperspeed Plated Suit: Flash unblockable chance makes for easier infinites.
- Czarnian Hook and Chain. Great for SP1 specialists, excellent on BH Lobo for SP2 AoE.
- Dual .357 Revolvers: Very strong on HQ with Tantu.
- Demonic Cloak + Kryptonian Battle Suit: For those 100% crit on SP2 builds with crit augments.
- Nanocarbon Mask: For crit-augmented BGs. Great with SP1-focused BG builds.
- Diamond Tipped Claws: Goes well on BNj CW.
1 → 2 and 2 → 3 Star Gears
Most of the 1 → 2 and 2 → 3 star gears don't have powerful effects and are outclassed by the higher star gears, but it is still important to max some of these gears. Why? They drop very often: from Survivor, MP Battle Completion rewards, Gear Lockers, MP Season Rewards, Nth Packs, some Challenge Rewards, PZ, and probably more places.
Because of their high drop rate, you will be able to shatter them more often. Thus, you should aim to max many of them, as higher-fused gears give much more bonus shards when shattered. The general pattern is that you get the same kinds of shards back from shattering as the kinds of shards you put into fusing. On the spreadsheet I've noted this down for future planning. (I really hope you are reading these sections there instead of here on reddit). It's also found on the wiki pages for the gears.
You might fuse up some common survivor gears in early/mid game, which will give green and blue shards when shattered. So, it might be better to start with the red-shard gears here. You can see I've gone ahead and fused Demon Blade, and am working on fusing Demonic Mask and will do Energy Lance (Battle Staff) next.
Despite what I said at the start, a few of these gears are quite useful at various stages of the game:
- Mark of Lady Shiva and Power Gloves are good basic damage gears useful in early game.
- They are outclassed by the 3 → 4 star basic damage gears (noted above)
- Alien Weaponry is a good gear for SP1 specialists during mid-game.
- Outclassed by Czarnian Hook and Chain/LoA Knives later.
- Demon Blade is excellent for SP2 specialists at all stages of the game.
Online Battles (MP)
It's important to keep grinding consistently in MP up to top 5% if you don't have the character or gear that is currently live as a challenge, as the rewards won't rotate back for 29 more weeks. This spreadsheet here is very helpful to plan out future grinding. In addition, the MP megathreads on this sub contain useful information as well.
At the start, it will take many battles to get to the top 5%, but if you put in the time commitment to get good gear unlocked early on it will more than pay off later. Using weaker teams gives you less battle rating than using stronger teams will give, but with some low-level gears equipped, going through battles with weaker teams shouldn't be too much of an issue. If you are struggling against certain characters or gears, read the wiki pages to understand how their passives work and how to beat them.
Update 3.4's re-introduction of ads have completely changed MP grinding. Now, one only needs 1 or 2 strong teams in early game, and can continuously watch ads to get energy to finish several battles in one sitting. Ultimate battles are the most rewarding, but are the toughest. If you can't consistently complete them, drop down to standard/epic battles. It's important to finish missions, as early on they can give lots of battle rating in comparison to what you can earn.
Several silvers have amazing passives that outclass some golds, and are very helpful in MP. Particularly, Silver Green Lantern and Cyborg both have bugged power generation passives, far exceeding the percentages stated on the card (in reality, Silver Green Lantern boosts power by 50% and Cyborg has a 200% power generation rate when he is tagged in [not just tagged out]). Silver Flash has his infinite which I've discussed enough above. Silver Wonder Woman and Nightwing are also excellent, Wonder Woman able to deal massive special damage thanks to her passive and Nightwing able to survive very long in battles thanks to power drain and his passive.
However, as you do want to earn more battle rating from battles, it is best to use your stronger golds as you get them, provided you are able to win consistently with them. If you want team ideas, the wiki's character pages all provide great information with character strategies and synergies.
For me, after week 2 I've been almost entirely grinding MP with two teams to get past top 5%: one with JCR, Regime GL, and N52 GL, and another with Regime Flash and two similar-stat characters. I've discussed my own MP grinding in my progress spreadsheet. Really, the teams others will use will vary based on the challenge characters they get.
Other Modes, Concluding Thoughts
I did not touch on Phantom Zone or Breakthrough here because completing them is best suited for later stages of the game. Perhaps in the future during another collection/progress reveal post I will discuss my methods I use to complete Elite crystals efficiently with a minimal collection.
To conclude, the key elements of this strategy are:
- Stop promoting characters after you are able to:
- Consistently defeat at least the first two fights of Bonus Battle 6.
- Complete Expert Difficulty of challenges, possibly skipping the boss fight at the end.
- Rank Top 5% in MP.
- Rank at least Top 5% in MP as often as possible.
- Finish up to Expert Difficulty of challenges (possibly skipping the boss fight at the end).
- Play survivor as often as you can, and focus on gears:
- Try to fuse a common drop survivor gear up to near max as early as you can, preferably Lex Chest Armor or LoA Blade for their usefulness.
- Afterwards, fuse up the red-shard 1 and 2-star gears to get a steady source of red shards for upgrading MP gears later.
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