Sunday, October 7, 2012

Guardian Cross Trainer Notes Part 3

Link to Part 2

This is part 3 and it's a little late as I've been busy. At this time of writing, we have below 2 days left to the 3rd Coliseum game event.

To all new Guardian Trainers joining this game, add my code when you the start: AM86879 when you first start the game and we will both get rare limited-edition Final Fantasy cards!

- If you find yourself setting an alarm clock to remind you to play the game as your energy points are full, beware, the game has probably taken over your life. I, myself, am guilty of doing it a few times.

- Excellent forums, especially the Tips and Tricks section at guardiancrossforum.com and guardiancross-forum.com. The former forum is now closed and continued in the latter forum. However, there are still posts found in the closed forum and I'm not sure if it will get transferred.

- Excellent Coliseum tips by Getatme over at the guardiancross-forum.com. In summary, target the 3rd weakest in the 5 choices, followed by the 2nd weakest and then the weakest. If you are nearing a win streak chain bonus, target accordingly to maximise your chance of getting the bonus. For example, if you already have 3 wins coming into the Coliseum and going for the 5 win streak, you'll want to target the 2nd weakest first, followed by the weakest to ensure a higher chance of getting the bonus. In all scenarios, if you lose, at least you can probably start a new chain again. It is a smart strategy but the tricky part is still about ranking the weaker teams out of 5 and your luck. Your opponent may have a low attack due to some "filler" guardians among 4-5* guardians at maxed level/ace/maxed stoned or all the above.

- I think the key to Coliseum games are the chain bonus, total number of wins bonus and the x1.2 bonus. At the start of a Coliseum game, it is easy to rack up bonuses after bonuses (including Domination ones if you have a strong guardian in front). I'm guessing it is due to the top players contemplating quitting and are selling their cards. However, you will reach a time/rank where you lose your chain. At this point, it may possibly be better to stop and let your rankings drop as much as possible before starting the climb and chain again. The only problem is that we are constantly getting Coliseum tickets as we also need to try to improve our Guardians through hunting. Always keep a lookout at your records for total number of wins as when you approach the hundredth fiftieth win, you get bonus points too and you will definitely want to time it to fall within the x1.2 period.

- Domination bonus is only possible at low rankings, speaking of which, a tip will be to use your most powerful guardian with revival skill as the first, Phoenix or Vampire Matron. This is because I think reviving counts as not using a 2nd guardian thus ensuring the bonus.

- In Coliseum between Rank A, which has neither special tickets nor Guardians and Rank B+, which has 2 special tickets. Generally, if you have a choice, Rank A with its better stones is better if your team is already strong. There are some 5* guardians like Phoenix without a +4 attack skill and I think Rank A stones might give those. Rank B+ is good for those still building up their team or need more stronger guardians for upcoming Coliseum games.

- You can go out of the Coliseum game with the back button but the opponents stay fixed and your wins and losses in that ticket remains. This is useful if you want to go modify your team and technically speaking, you can actually store up to 6 Coliseum tickets. You will not use up any tickets to re-enter the Coliseum. I haven't tried quitting the game inside the Coliseum though.

- Regarding debuffer guardians like Slime, it is generally agreed in forums that they are not necessary at high rankings as the teams are filled with high levels and your debuffer will have been a wasted slot and easy kill. I personally find that the key to use debuffer is when you notice you have a guardian in your team that does nothing, has no debuffer skill and gets 1-shot. It will be more useful to have a debuffer guardian that does nothing, gets 1-shot but at least applied debuff to the opponent. I prefer Guardians with a debuff skill like Medusa or Pazuzu but do note that the debuff only happens to the first guardian it encounters. If it kills it, the next guardian coming out do not get debuffed.

- Best debuffer guardians in my and everybody's opinion should be the 1* Slime and 3* Nue. I also think that only the first 2 debuffs out of the 3 they can learn are enough. Slime, with its -20% Agility and Defense, is excellent in front of a physical attack guardian while Nue, with its -20% Agility and Wisdom, is great in front of an elemental attack guardian. I personally find that slot 1 and slot 9 are best slots for the debuffer. Debuffers will probably play a bigger role in future Coliseum games where there are heavier restrictions like team member number, certain zone-only, certain guardian shape-only or certain level-only. I'm lookng forward to those as they require a bit more strategy.

- Windyfox has completed the guide on all Level 4* and 5* guardians over at the Guardian Cross Guide Blog. Read it for tips on how to train your guardians! Note, there is also another contributor to the blog, dkreangdoon. I don't know if Level 3* guardians will be reviewed next but seeing how the JP Wiki link did not complete most of the abilities of them, I doubt there will be. I think most of the players are using 3* guardians as feeders. In my experience, a Max Level 50 3* can deal quite a lot of damage too but most of them probably picked up a +3 attack from stones. I'll try to do a brief review based on what is available in the wiki and what I know in a separate post if I have the time. Again, 3* will play a bigger role in future Coliseums with different rules and heavier restrictions.

- You can sacrifice a highly trained guardian to feed another but personally, I think it is not worth it as there are some "discounts" to the exp gained. With the upcoming Coliseum games, it's best to keep them around instead as they may be needed, unless they are the same guardian of course.

- Interesting post about Agility calculation by Lineage over at the guardiancross-forum.com. Food for thought.

- With the newest sub-mission, the best AI to grind GP and tickets after you completed everything is now O-type wild guardians in Kaitsu Cavern 2/2 Level 37 by the bottom right torch or Level 40 by the treasure chest. Credits to sonicsonic and demon85 with their post over at the hardwarezone forum Guardian Cross thread.

- Important information: Square Enix uses your iOS devices' Mac Address to identify your account. I think it is already an important rule for any Mac Addresses but anyway, do not share any of your devices, be it laptop or video game consoles, Mac Addresses with anyone. Mac Address is a unique identify for a device. I've read earlier that Apple do not allow developers to use a device unique ID and Square probably will not have used that as it will get their app rejected by the App Store. If someone gets your Mac Address for your iOS device, they can spoof it and enter the game in your account! Square Enix also bans users through the Mac Address.
Credits to insanica03 with his post over at the hardwarezone forum Guardian Cross thread.

- If you have a lot of money invested in the game, losing your iDevices will be a huge nightmare!

The 3rd Coliseum Game has ended and I got B+ again. The next game's rules are actually the same. I thought it will be the Berneside Plains-only games which change things a little and make it interesting but no.

Update 27/10/2012: I will not be continuing with part 4. Get your game tips from the guardiancross-forums.com's Tips and Tricks section.

iTunes App Store link: Guardian Cross - SQUARE ENIX