Summoners War Midgame Progress Guide

Summoners War Midgame Progress Guide by jescalan

So you’ve been playing for a while. You might have a couple nice 4* summons at this point, a few 3* s that you have invested in. If you are really lucky, you might even have a natural 5* . Either way, you are looking to make progress in the game and wondering where to focus. All too often, the advice asked is “where do I focus” with a list of monsters or a screenshot. Well, I went through that stage as well, and feel like finally I am out of it, so I’d like to share my results with others having the same struggle.

Resources

Let’s start with some theory and lay the groundwork for the conclusion that will come later. In general, there are a few resources in the game that you strive to obtain, and a few ways to obtain them. I’m going to list them out below:

• Mana, used primarily to purchase and upgrade runes
• Runes, used to strengthen your monsters
• Monsters, used to get you further in the game overall
• Crystals, used to strengthen your monsters (more summons, quicker leveling)

The resources also have differing relevance at different points in the game:

• Mana is less important early game and more important late game
• Runes are less important early game and more important late game
• Monsters are more important early game and less important late game
• Crystals are always important

Some may debate the monsters point — the reason it’s there is because early game when you have few weak monsters, it’s very likely that by summoning monsters you will get a monster that is of high value to you. But later in the game when you have summoned a bunch more monsters overall, it becomes less and less likely that you’ll get one that really helps you a lot. Eventually it will be the case that only perhaps 5 of the natural 4* s or a natural 5* are all that you are really hoping for anymore, and at this point you’re looking at sub 1% chances of getting anything out of a new summon other than a fodder or if you are lucky a skill-up.

Summons

We discussed desirable summons briefly in the last section, let’s elaborate on that a bit by listing out a few of the monsters you want in your arsenal if possible:

• Shannon (Wind Pixie) 2*
• Ramagos (Wind Warbear) 2*
• Megan (Water Mystic Witch) 3*
• Bernard (Wind Griffon) 3*
• Raoq (Fire Inugami) 3*
• Belladeon (Light Inugami) 3*
• Ahman (Light Bearman) 3*
• Darion (Light Vagabond) 3*
• Copper (Wind Living Armor) 3*
• Arnold (Fire Death Knight) 4*
• Chloe (Fire Epikion Preist) 4*
• Jojo (Fire Joker) 4*
• Hwa (Fire Rakshasha) 4*
• Baretta (Fire Slyph) 4*
• Soha (Water 9-Tailed Fox) 4*
• Luer (Water Phantom Thief) 4*
• Lumirecia (Water Slyphid) 4*
• Tyron (Water Slyph) 4*
• Acasis (Wind Slyphid) 4*
• Aquila (Wind Brownie Magician) 4*
• Briand (Wind Death Knight) 4*
• Chasun (Wind Sky Dancer) 4*
• Delphoi (Wind Undine) 4*
• Lushen (Wind Joker) 4*
• Orochi (Wind Ninja) 4*
• Julien (Wind Phantom Thief) 4*
• Any natural 5*

There are many more that could be added to this list. I’m only representing here the monsters that are more or less universally considered extremely useful and worth investing in heavily and taking to 6* in the long term (with the exception of perhaps raoq, bernard, soha, and megan). This also does not mean you should fodder everyone else, they just aren’t as much of a priority to invest in if you have the choice of investing in one of the above monsters, assuming you are still early-mid game of course. This is also not a tier list, just a very rough “heads up, if you have one of the guys on this list, they are useful all the way through late game and worth putting time into” list (and open to suggestions, please leave a comment).

So, that’s about 4% of 2* summons, 5% of 3* summons, and 30% of 4* summons (excluding dark and light for 4* s) that will be the kind of monster you get and definitely continue to invest in until late game. And while the 4* useful summon rate might seem high, keep in mind that you have a ~5% chance of getting a 4* off a mystical scroll (and mysticals are rare on their own), so that boils down really to a 1.5% chance for any given mystical scroll. Overall, the cards are stacked against you, pretty badly. On any summon, you have at best a 5% chance of getting a super strong late game monster. And the more of these useful summons you get (congrats once you have), the more stacked against you they become, as getting a second copy is generally nothing more than a devilmon.

The upside is that many of these guys can be farmed or fused, many more that are not on this list can be saved as fusion material, and there are plenty of others that are entirely solid and worth investing in still and I just don’t have on the list. So don’t get down too much, if you haven’t had much summon luck, you can get the ones you need still through hard work, not luck.

Goals

Let’s talk about goals in the game that you can make progress towards:

1. Finishing the scenario maps
2. Being able to beat giants, dragons, and/or elemental b10 dungeons
3. Getting a solid rating in arena (conq rank typically)
4. Finishing the trial of ascension
5. Being one of the top arena players

These are listed in the order in which they can and should be completed. Which is simply based on the strength of the opposing monsters you will be going up against. This guide is targeting people who are between stages 1 and 2, which I am calling mid-game.

An mentioned in the intro, the most common question asked in this game is “where should I focus?” with a screenshot of someone’s monsters. This question is asked 100% by mid-game players, and rarely is a good answer given other than just pointing out which of their monsters are on the above list, and telling them to focus there, or telling them to work on a giants or dragons team in a very general sense. Well, here I am to give more clarity and answer the question once and for all. It’s a reasonable question to ask, because once you have decent monsters, there are a few directions you could move in theoretically — arena, TOA, or giants. And you also need to know which monsters are good for any of these. It’s confusing, I have been there.

Bridging the Gap

The answer is you should be building a team you can use to complete giants b10 manually first, then on auto. Why? This is where all we’ve talked about this starts to culminate. Once you have decent summons and your chance of pulling an OP summon are well below 1%, in order to continue making progress, you need to do two things. First, you need to strengthen your monsters. Second, you need to continue getting mystical scrolls and slowly grinding towards that slim chance you have at snagging a great monster.

In order to strengthen your monsters, you need to be able to level them to 5* level 35, and eventually move into 6* . You also need good runes (4* and up) that are well upgraded (+9 to +12) with the right stats in the right sets. This means you need a huge amount of mana, since it costs a ton of mana to buy runes from the shop and upgrade runes no matter where you got them.

Giants B10 will get you most of these things. If you can complete it, it not only drops the strongest runes in the game, but also has the best mana/energy ratio, so it will get you the most mana (after selling crap rune drops). It also has a very high rate of mystical scroll drops compared to anything else. So by doing giants B10, you are maximizing your efficiency with regard to both runes, mana, and probably summons, which is awesome. However, giants B10 is not easy to get to, and you need a very strong team even to be able to manual it, never mind auto. So how do you progress towards getting the team there?

Farming

So the one thing that giants B10 can not give you is a way to quickly level up your monsters and slowly move them towards 6* s. There is no monster than can solo B10, so bringing fodder there can’t happen, and its exp isn’t that high anyway. So for leveling up monsters, I’d recommend investing also in a farmer — meaning a monster that can quickly solo a level that gives a good exp return with 3 fodder monsters. There are a few places you can farm, but across the board you will find that Faimon 1 is the most highly recommended. It has consistent 2* fodder drops, and good energy and mana returns. It can also be cleared very quickly by certain monsters since the opposition are all glass cannons that can be 1-shotted.

The most common choice to farm faimon 1 is Raoq, the fire inugami. Raoq can very quickly and reliably clear faimon, and is a fantastic choice for a farmer. He also drops from faimon himself, so you don’t just need to be lucky to get one, you can definitely get one with persistance. It is absolutely worth trying to get Raoq and leveling him to 5* level 35. If/once you have one already, good work, make sure he can quickly solo clear faimon, as you will need this to train up for giants B10. Put your best attack runes on him, fatal and blade. With nicely upgraded 4-6* attack runes, he will be able to easily clear it. You need about 1400 attack for him to clear it on auto 100%.

If you do not have Raoq and can’t get one, you can use Sath, the fire grim reaper, if you have one. And if you have any of the following monsters, you don’t need raoq because they are even better at soloing faimon quickly, and with nice runes can complete hard or hell. But the list below are much rarer monsters that most do not have early in the game:

• Tyron (Water Slyph)
• Su (Water Rakshasha)
• Lumirecia (Water Slyphid)
• Julie (Water Pierret)
• Any Water Natural 5 *

This above list is the one I am least confident in, so any feedback is welcome. I’d love to make sure this list is super accurate. There are many others that can clear faimon 1 too of course, the ones listed here can typically clear tougher difficulties than Raoq at a comparable speed. If clear speed is not a concern for you, you can use almost any tanky water monster. Even a water warbear or golem will work fine. Rina (water epikion) is also a popular choice, although very slow too.

So, get your farmer of choice, get them leveled up with good attack, and make sure they can make a run alone with 3 low level fodders, then you’re set. As an added bonus can use them as DPS in arena.

The Road to B10

So, you have a farmer, and you are ready to start moving towards B10. There are many teams that can work for B10, I’m going to suggest one below that is comprised entirely of farmable monsters so that everyone can manage it. I’ll make notes of potential swaps where possible.

• Darion (Can replace with Acasis, Delphoi, maybe Lushen)
• Ahman (Can replace with Chasun)
• Belladeon (Can replace with Wind Inugami)
• Shannon
• Bernard

Replacing Darion with Acasis or Delphoi will help a lot, mostly because they both have very strong leader skills. Many people have Acasis from HOH so this is good. If you don’t it’s ok, you can still do it fine.

Many people suggest Orochi, but from personal experience I can confidently say I do not recommend Orochi when you are starting out. Down the line he can increase clear speed, but his third skill hits 6 times, which increases the frequency of giant hits, and also means he frequently takes the hit and dies unless he is very strong. He also needs pretty specific and strong runes in order to shine — very high on accuracy, crit rate, and hp. It’s very hard to get a good rune set for him. Finally, he does not support or heal the team, so you have less recovery potential if something goes wrong. So if you have Orochi, he is awesome, but I would not suggest using him until later.

All of these monster need to be at 5* level 35. They also need really solid runes. For rune suggestions:

• Darion: Energy, hp hp hp
• Acasis: Swift/Despair Focus, spd hp acc
• Ahman: Energy/Violent/Blade, hp critr hp
• Bella: Swift Focus, spd hp acc
• Shannon: Swift/Despair Focus, spd hp acc
• Bernard: Swift Focus, spd hp acc

These are not set in stone. Definitely experiment around. For Shannon you might need hp in the 6 slot so she’s less squishy. For Darion, you might need accuracy in slot 6 or a focus set if you are unable to apply the attack debuff between him and Bernard. For Ahman, you need 100% crit rate, do what it takes to get there. A 5 or 6* crit rate rune on slot 4 helps a ton. For either Shannon or Acasis you can switch between swift and despair based on what you have.Since giants drop despair, it might be a little bit before you have good enough runes to actually put them on. Always experiment.

Also note that skillups on these guys are super important. Having Bernard’s third skill maxed is essential, and having his second skill maxed helps a huge amount. Having Bella’s second skill maxed is essential, third skill maxed helps a lot. All of Shannon’s skills need to be maxed. For Ahman, you don’t need skills maxed, but it helps. For Darion, his second skill has to be maxed. If you have Acasis, you will want all her skills maxed if possible. At very least, having the third skill maxed is essential, second and first help a lot. To get these skillups, farm them or use devilmons. I wouldn’t recommend devilmons on anyone lower than a natural 4* but if you are in a rush or feeling stuck, go for it. You can farm skillups for all of these guys except for Acasis. Acasis is an entirely reasonable use of devilmons.

Start at B6. If you can complete it manually, try to run it on auto. If you can’t, and your team is at lv 35 with the right runes, you probably need to upgrade your runes. Farm, get mana, make upgrades. You can run B6 or hell boss stages to try to get 4* and 5* runes, or at least 3* s in the right slots to start. Once you can auto B6, try to manual B7, you should be able to do this. Continue building. Switch between farming and leveling fodders to slowly move towards making one of your monsters 6* and running B7 to try to grab nice runes. Once you can auto B7, run B8 manual when you have time. Once you can auto B8, you should be ready to manual B10. Skip B9 because the fire monsters will wreck your wind team. At this point you are in a rhythm, and you know what to do. You’ll make progress slowly, upgrading your runes bit by bit and getting members of the team to 6* . As for who to 6* first, it should be whoever needs it. If you feel like you lack healing output, 6* Ahman. If you feel like one of the team members is dying often (usually this is Shannon), 6* them to get them more HP. Don’t worry about bringing glamorous monsters to 6* (like Chloe, Hwa, Arnold, etc) unless they are on your B10 team or if doing so will allow you to farm faster or higher difficulties.

Eventually you will be at a spot where you are able to auto B10. At this point, you will have well-upgraded 5* and 6* runes with solid substats on all your team members, and probably a number of them will be 6* . At this point, you will be raking in good runes and mana along with many more mystical scrolls and rainbowmen (?), and you can get ready to choose your next goal in the game between building a giants team, working on TOA, and/or getting higher in arena.

The Breakdown

Let’s get a little more specific with how giants usually goes. The giants hit absurdly hard by default, and you absolutely need to debuff them in order to survive. Typically if you have an attack debuff, glancing debuff, and slow debuff on the giant, have removed their attack buff, and your defense has not been debuffed, the giant will hit for basically no damage at all, and you will have 2 or so full rounds of attack (and heals) between his hits. If you can keep the giant in this state, you will coast through the battle with no issue at all. His hits will land at like 2-3k maybe, which is paltry, Ahman can heal that out in a turn.

So the key to beating giants is consistently keeping him in this state. Three monsters, Bella, Shannon, and Bernard, are the keys to doing this. Shannon applies slow debuff and glancing hit debuff, Bernard applies attack debuff, and Bella removes the giant’s attack buff. You need high accuracy on all three of these monsters in order to pull this off. In addition if any of them die, the giant’s damage will at least double, making the rest of the battle much harder, so they need enough hp to take a hit and not die if something goes wrong.

The rest of the skills and monsters are really support and damage control in case something goes wrong with Bella, Shannon, and Bernard’s debuffs and buff removal. Acasis provides a small heal and the shield will mitigate a big hit if one of the debuffs doesn’t line up, and her leader skill greatly reduces the chance that a defense debuff will land. If you are using Darion, he provides a backup attack debuff if needed and damage reduction across the team. Bella has an emergency heal if needed. Bernard ensures that you are going fast enough to get two turns per round, which increases the chances that all debuffs are in place when the giant hits. Shannon also provides an attack and defense buff which can reduce the damage on a big hit. And Ahman always keeps everyone’s HP topped off, and can help to recover if a big hit does land.

As you progress through the levels, keep an eye on what is causing you to lose when things do go downhill. Almost all the time, it’s not debuffing the giant and/or not removing his attack buff. This is mostly on Bella, Shannon, and/or Darion’s accuracy. Getting a great accuracy rune in the 6 slot, and/or good accuracy substats will decrease the odds that this happens. Make this a priority. Don’t go above 85% accuracy – there’s always a 15% chance that it can be resisted, no matter what. Hopefully your other team members’ buffs and heals can cover for the off chance that one of them doesn’t land.

That’s It!

Yup, that’s all there is to it. So let’s see a few less of these “where should I focus” threads, and more people getting solidly on the track to moving forward in the game! As a final note, all of this is just my opinion, man, and your own mileage may vary. Please do not get angry about any of this, there are too many angry people on the internet. I spent a huge amount of time writing this guide just to help other people out, don’t be a dick. If you don’t agree with something or have another suggestion, please let me know! I’d be happy to rationally discuss it and get it added in here.

My IGN is Xylmn, if you’d like to chat or add me. I usually hang out in 8088. I am still a noob myself, and don’t play a ton as I work full time and have a lot of things going on outside of work too — I just enjoy strategy games and like spending some of my free time on them. I only have one 6* (its Ahman, no regrets), and I can not auto B10 still. I feel like I had the perspective to write this guide because I am still at this early stage. You know things best right after you learn them, not when they are far in your past.