A Beginners Guide to Characters: How Character Variations and Rarity works
So I started the game on launch, I was happy go lucky with pulling characters, I didn't know who was good, who was bad or why I should use one character over another. I simply played who I liked and though that it was cool that I got a certain colour version of them. Now that I have played the game for a few days and done some research in the menus I have learned how exactly the game tiers its characters.
This guide is mainly for new players or players with limited knowledge of the game to try and help you understand what makes a good character and what makes a certain character better than another.
Variations
So to start us off we need to understand that every character has 3 variations.
- Water (Blue)
- Fire (Red)
- Wood (Green)
These do not represent Shu, Wu or Wei and are used for the battle system which works similar to Pokemon. I'm sure you have figured out what beats what by now.
It is recommended that you have 1 wood, fire and water on your 3-man team to cover all opposition that can be thrown against you.
Character Rank
This will link in with the 3 variations each character has. Basically each character will have a weak, neutral and strong rank to their variations.
You will notice this by the background of a character's portrait.
- Bronze Backgrounds are the weakest version of that character
- Silver Backgrounds are the neutral version of the character
- Gold Backgrounds are the strong version of the character
Generally the Gold version of the character is the same as the kingdom they fight for. For example, all officers from Wei will have a strong blue and Shu will have strong Green etc. Characters from Other can vary.
Character Rarity
This is the most important thing to understand and something you will notice if you do your research in the Index.
A characters Rarity is based on the BASE star rarity they have to be to be pulled from a scroll. Base means the least amount of stars needed to pull that character from a scroll. For example a 5★ base character variation can not be pulled any lower than as a 5★. Let us use Liu Bei an an example:
- Water (Blue) Liu Bei is a 1★ rarity variation. This means you can pull this version of Liu Bei 1-6★
- Fire (Red) Liu Bei is a 2★ rarity variation. This means you can pull this version of Liu Bei 2-6★. You cannot pull this Liu Bei as a 1★
- Wood (Green) Liu Bei is a 4★ rarity variation. This means you can pull this version of Liu Bei 4-6★. You cannot pull this Liu Bei as a 1★, 2★ or 3★
The base rarity relates with the stats of the character which is why the difference is so important. This is discussed below.
Putting it all together
So what have we learned exactly? We know that each character has 3 variations and that those variations are ranked weak, neutral and strong. So with that said you would think that a Gold character will be better than any Silver character right?
Well...no, that is not the case. You should not base how good a character is based on their variation strength, it all boils down to base rarity. Let us again use another example.
Here we will be looking at Sun Jian and Cao Cao. Sun Jian's variations are like this:
- Water (Blue) 2★ rarity. (Neutral-Silver variation rank)
- Fire (Red) 3★ rarity. (Strong-Gold variation rank)
- Wood (Green) 1★ rarity (Weak-Bronze variation rank)
So Sun Jian is a very strong Fire unit to use. Now let us look at Cao Cao:
- Water (Blue) 5★ rarity. (Strong-Gold variation rank)
- Fire (Red) 4★ rarity. (Neutral-Silver variation rank)
- Wood (Green) 3★ rarity (Weak-Bronze variation rank)
Now Cao Cao's Fire variation rank is only Neutral, making it not his strongest variation. But however, even though this is the case, his neutral variation is still more powerful than Sun Jian's strong variation.
The reason, as stated, is because of the star rarity. Because Sun Jian's Strong-Gold is only a 3★, it will lose to Cao Cao even though the same variation for him is only his Neutral-Silver because it is 4★ rarity as base.
Rarity and Stats
The main thing that base rarity changes in the character are their stats. Their Health Points, Attack and Defence.
Using the example of Cao Cao and Sun Jian above, I will explain.
Let's look at Sun Jian's 3★ rarity Fire (Red) (Strong-Gold variation rank). His stats at max level 6★ are:
- HP: 16,345
- ATK: 3,303
- DEF: 1,113
Comparing that to Cao Cao's 4★ rarity Fire (Red) (Neutral-Silver variation rank). His stats at max level 6★ are:
- HP: 17,479
- ATK: 3,451
- DEF: 1,194
As you can see, with both characters at the maximum possible level, Cao Cao's stats are better, even if slightly. But this is Cao Cao's Neutral-Silver variation, his Strong-Gold variation is MUCH more powerful. That is why base ★ rarity is so important.
Creating a team
When looking to create a team, try to use the character variation with the highest star rarity base. Even if you have a gold Water character, you could actually have a Silver Water character that is stronger than them. Make sure to look at the index to check out what that character's base star rarity is and also their stats to see which is stronger.
If you navigate to the index, when picking a character and checking their type variation, you will see their base star rarity displayed automatically.
This is not an intense guide, just some advice for new players to understand what makes a character good or bad. I have always made the mistake or using a character that wasn't as good as I thought he was, so I hope this can help you not make the same mistake.
There is a super handy tier list you can find on the front page if you want to check out the rarity of characters. With that said, good luck and fight on!
Posted Apr 3, 2017, 8:28 PM UTC · edited