Road Map for New Players (F2P friendly)
Hey everyone, I've decided to revamp the original F2P roadmap guide written by /u/itspabo. While it is a great resource for many players, the information there is a bit dated and there are some sections that I believe new players should read and be exposed to.
Click on the Index to Jump Sections ------------------>
Useful Links:
This guide is meant for any players looking for some guidance on what to do. It is not a strict road map, as there are different paths and shortcuts that players can take depending on what they want to get out of this game. However, following this guide will increase efficiency and prevent possibly bad decisions early in a player's career.
This guide will be based off the assumption that the reader's account does not have any rare recruit units. However, I will suggest players look into rerolling if their current account does not have any good rare recruit units. The purpose of rerolling is to obtain a character that is otherwise hard to get (eg Gear 3 Luffy, Legends) since many year-long players still lack these units.
You can look more into rerolling here
Much of the information here is supplemented by the FAQ linked above. Please read through the FAQ for more detailed answers to small questions you might have.
The main goals in this guide are fairly similar to what was established in the F2P guide:
Establish a good team early on
Prepare for Mihawk
Obtain Mihawk
Prepare for other Raid Bosses and Hawk Training Forest
Beginnings of your Pirate Journey
So, you've just completed the tutorial and some of the story missions but aren't sure how to progress. Well, your pirate journey is just beginning, so follow these crucial steps to becoming a Pirate King.
Assembling a Team
You've learned this from the tutorial, but one of the most important things to do is to assemble a solid team. To do so, you will need a good captain and units. Luffy is a good starter captain but will quickly get outclassed:
Boosts ATK of [STR] characters by 2x, and ATK of all others by 1.5x
So make a team based off the best captain that you have. Any captain that buffs ATK by 2x or more (such as Asura Zoro) will be great for the early game, but will start to fall out later.
Remember to use units that will get buffed by the captain ability. With Story Luffy, all units get buffs but STR units will get a higher buff. So having a team with more STR units, even with lower attack than some of your non STR units, can do more damage.
Picking your Ships
Take a look at our ships page to get a good idea of what ships are out there.
The Dinghy Ship that you start off with is pretty bad, so use it until you get the Merry Go then switch to that. DO NOT upgrade the Dinghy.
It is worth using your cola on the Merry Go, but note that the Thousand Sunny that gets unlocked later in story is a straight upgrade to it. If you can rush story with an unmaxed Merry Go to get the Thousand Sunny, then go for it.
The Baratie Ship can be unlocked and is also a good newbie ship, but once your Merry is level 5 and gives an ATK boost then the Baratie can be ditched.
Keep completing story until you lock Extra Island. This is where all the juicy stuff will be and where you will be doing the majority of your farming. You can keep completing story at your own pace, but plan to use the majority of your stamina in Extra Island.
Increasing Your Pirate Level and Fortnights
This section is second because increasing your Pirate level is very crucial from the start, since many of the best units in the game have a huge team cost. Not only that, but the higher your PLVL is the higher your stamina will be. Certain bosses, such as Mihawk and Doffy, require a certain amount of stamina to even enter to fight them. Raising your stamina will do wonders in efficient farming as well.
One of the best ways to increase your pirate level is to farm fortnights. Fortnights can be found in Extra Island, and have a weekly and biweekly rotation of different bosses. Many of these bosses are powerful units on their own and should be obtained. Check the wiki for a list/guides of different fortnights and what fortnight is current.
Some Notable Fortnight Bosses:
I've only named some of the earlier Fortnight bosses as there are a ton of them now. Almost all of them can be an asset to your early game teams, so I suggest picking at least 1 copy up before moving on.
Depending on your units, you may not be able to do the higher difficulties. This is totally fine, just do the highest difficulty you can do easily (no gemming, shouldn't be losing). The drop rates tend to be lower, but not as low as story islands. Your pirate level will also increase much faster than farming story islands as well unless you farm certain story islands on 2x exp or 1/2 stamina days.
TL;DR: Focus on your PLVL and increase it as much as possible. This should almost always be your priority. Do this by using stamina only on fortnights when possible. Do story during down time
Tips on Leveling/Evolving your (free) Straw Hat Units
The Straw Hat pirates that you get for free for beating each story island are quite good for newer players and can be useful for veteran players as well. You will want to level and evolve your Straw Hats, but some will have certain caveats on how you should do this so read carefully (especially for Usopp)
- Monkey D. Luffy Gum-Gum Pistol - This is your very first unit. What you want to do is to get him evolved to Monkey D. Luffy Gear 2 and to about level 50 when Mihawk arrives. This will be elaborated later, but that's about all you need to know for now.
Once he is fully evolved, he can be used as a captain for STR or Red units and is an ok rainbow captain. He gives a decent Attack multiplier for STR units so he is a sufficiently good captain early on.
Luffy becomes a great captain with the introduction of 5+ units as seen here. As such, you will want him to evolve to 5+ asap.
Roronoa Zoro - The 2nd unit you get for free, his final evolution as Roronoa Zoro Ashura Ichibugin is very powerful and a better captain than Luffy. Evolve him asap, though you might notice he has 2 evolution paths. Either one is fine, just note that one of them has a lower level requirement to evolve which might be preferable.
Nami - Nami is a unit that you should not fully evolve her due to one of her evolutions having a very useful (albeit niche) ability. Her final evolution has decent stats, but her captain ability and special are quite bad. What you want to do is to level and evolve Nami into Nami Mirage Tempo and keep her there. The ability to fully block attacks is very rare and coveted, which makes Mirage Tempo the highly preferred evolution. Specific examples of where this ability is useful includes the Rainbow Dragon island and the Zephyr Raid Boss, whom are INT bosses that can hit super hard.
Usopp (SUPER IMPORTANT) - Hopefully you have already read and applied this tip, but in case you haven't, Usopp has one of the greatest evolutions in the game in the form of Golden Pound Usopp. You should get him evolved to this form ASAP and keep him there forever. Just like Nami, he is much better not being fully evolved. The reasoning behind this is that as though he has better stats and a better special as Sogeking, the cooldown is 5 turns longer. So that means you have to wait 5 more turns, which can be difficult to do on certain Raids or fortnights. Since Golden Pound Usopp is used in nearly every team solely for his special, it does not matter that he has good stats.
Sanji - Sanji should be evolved to Sanji Diable Jambe Flambe before Mihawk's raid, as his special is very useful there. He is an ok unit and kind of a bad captain but his special is quite good.
You can find evolution materials on Extra Island. Different kinds of mats appear on different days, so be sure to have a few backups in your box so you don't have to farm them every time. They can be found in Story as well, but the drop rates are generally worse.
Note that story units do get a sizeable upgrade in the future with the introduction of 5+ units. This is a recent introduction in Japan, with it coming to Global eventually. As such, it is recommended you keep your 5+ units.
Using your Gems
Gems are the only way to obtain Rare Recruit units, so it might seem like you will want to pull for a RR unit once you have 5 gems. However, this is not advised, as some of the best characters in the game are only able to be pulled during a 24 hour event known as Sugofest. These characters include V2 G4 and WB/Marco, and the less gems you have to use during Sugofest the less likely you will be able to obtain these godly units. So be patient and save up!
Gems have other uses as well. Gems are also the only way you can increase Box Space. It might not sound fun, but you cannot possibly hold all the useful and good units in the game without enough box space. At the very least, you are actually gaining something immediately when you expand your Box Space. My rule of thumb is to have an extra 100 spaces, but for newer players this can range from 25-50. Expanding Box Space is one of the few gem investments you will not regret. This is the safe use for your gems
Finally, gems can be used to refill your stamina or resurrect your team during a fight. Refilling your stamina is recommended when farming a Raid Boss or certain fortnights. This is especially recommended when your stamina is very high since gems start to bring in more stamina. Resurrecting your team is usually not recommended, but circumstances might vary. Definitely do not resurrect in a story chapter
Following the Chopperman
The feature "Request From Chopperman", a total of 80 requests under the Rookie section, provides a variety of additional rewards that can help you set sail. Evolvers, Colas, Turtles, extra exps and even Gems are for you to grab. These 80 missions follows the natural progression of a player. The last request is to clear Mihawk's raid, which is the final goal of this guide as well.
Here is the complete list of 80 requests. Compatible for Global and Japan version.
Using your Cola, Cotton Candy, Tomes, and other Rare Items
Cola
As explained briefly above, you will want to use your Cola on certain ships. The most important ship to max as a new player is the Thousand Sunny, though you can put some cola into the Merry Go for a decent attack boost.
Cotton Candy
There are 4 types of Cotton Candy, and they are only available as a Rare Drop in Story Isles starting at the Grand Line. Cotton Candy (CC) adds a miniscule amount of stats to a unit, but they can add up and seriously make a unit strong.
CC is mostly an end-game/min-max resource, so don't fuss too much about these yet. If you get any CC but don't have box space, feed them to an evolver (penguin, hermit crab, etc) and favorite them. The CC stats will transfer if you feed the evolver to another unit, so a +2 ATK penguin fed to a +0 Doffy will net a +2 Doffy
Skill Books
These are books that you can only obtain from fortnights and coliseums. They raise the skill level of their respective units (or units with skills of the exact same title) at a small percentage (approximately ~12%). The only other way to raise skill level is to feed dupe units or units with skills of the same title) It's best to save these for 2x skill up events.
Tomes
Otherwise known as socket books, these are fairly valuable books that will give any unit a random socket skill. The only other way to get socket skills is through dupe units or the same character unit, so certain hard to get units benefit tremendously from these.
Meat
They can sometimes come in different forms, but they are functionally the same in that they all raise exp by 5 million. This is best used on legend units as they require the most exp to get from level 1 to 100. If you do not have any legend units, it is recommended that you save these as they are event-only items that are obtained through the mail (as of now).
Universal Skill Books
Just like tomes, these can be used by any unit to have a chance to raise their skill level by 1 (same chance as skill books and dupes). As these are very rare, they are best used by legend units whose books have rare drop rates.
Making Friends - We all came from the bottom
Add friends after you use them as a guest. Early on, it doesn't matter too much who you use as a friend captain though later on you will want to have a very select group of people to choose from. But the important thing is to have Friend Captains to reliably choose from, as they will help immensely with their captain abilities in completing stages.
Making A Name for Yourself
You are probably noticing that you can clear more content now. You are advancing through Story Mode, you are able to clear 15 Stamina Fortnights, etc. Read on to see how you can advance towards the End Game Content. The main focus here is to prepare for Mihawk.
Farming Story Bosses - Is it really worth it?
Simply put, it's not an efficient use of stamina to farm Story Bosses up to Smoker. The reason is that these particular Story Bosses are also Fortnight bosses, and Fortnights are much more rewarding in terms of drops and drop rates. The only unit who might be sort of worth it is Alvida since her special is quite good. The rest are units that are nice to have but not ones you would miss.
However, once you start to advance and get strong teams and units, then you can look at farming other bosses such Crocodile and Enel. There is also a small chance of obtaining these characters from Friend Point Poll.
There are certain Story-only units that are worth your time farming, such as Zeff, Doublefinger and Mr. 1. However, they are not necessities so I would recommend farming for them when you have nothing else to do (you are still better off doing fortnights early on)
Laboon and Vivi
These two deserve their own section since they get hyped up for new players.
My Advice: Don't Bother Farming Them
The two are part of the infamous Zombie Team, where you try to beat a stage through pure attrition and time. Zombie Teams are only capable of beating the first 3 raid bosses, and even then they can only beat Mihawk consistently. Monster Chopper and Garp require certain nuances that can screw up a run, and Garp is not that important to have early on.
Not only that, but Mihawk is beatable with F2P units without using a Zombie Team. Even then, it's worth gemming (resurrection) to get 1 copy of Mihawk than using a ton of stamina to farm either of the two and wasting 2 hours to get 1 copy.
To sum up, their uses are niche and probably not worth the effort in farming as it is often an inefficient use of stamina where the reward isn't really worth it.
Sockets
There is a whole wiki page for this, but this is more of a focus for end-game farming. The take-away here is that you should feed any dupes of a character into the best version of that unit you have. DO NOT SELL DUPES (usually)
For example, if you have extra Gear 2 Luffys and you have a Gear 3 Luffy, you can feed those dupes into the Gear 3 Luffy and obtain socket powers.
Don't worry about this too much until later when you have established teams.
Turtle Time
Every week, on Monday, there are two random hours where there is a Turtle Island in Extra Island. This is known as Turtle Time. It lasts for 30 minutes, starting from the beginning of the hour, and costs 15 stamina. There is no limit besides time. What makes this so good is that you can get a whole bunch of turtles to level up your units quickly.
However
Turtle Island can be pretty difficult to be beat, espcially if you are new, since the Elder Turtle boss has gigantic defense. There are a few teams that can farm this island efficiently, so I recommend reading through the Teambuilding Guide and checking out the teams used for turtle time.
One of the popular newbie teams is to use Tandems with a full Marine team. All you need is 1 Marine of each color (all at the same evolution stage) and when they have a full tandem board they can clear the boss stage. Try and obtain this team if you are unable to get a better Turtle Time team
Preparing for Mihawk
So you might be wondering what the fuss is over Mihawk and why he is mentioned so often in this guide. Mihawk is considered to be one of the best units in the game, and he is only obtainable through his Raid event which lasts 24 hours. This raid comes sort of randomly, but in general people have enough time to know to expect him.
Anyways, Mihawk is also one of the most popular captains due to his captain ability which can buff all Slashers by a whopping 2.5x. Many of the strongest units in the game are Slashers, and Mihawk can buff any of them no matter what color they are. Mihawk also has one of the best specials in the game as well. He can cut all enemies' current HP by 30%, so the damage he can inflict can get into the hundreds of thousands in one swipe.
Hopefully, you are now salivating over this guy. All players should want to have him in their team. But how does one prepare for his raid? Well, hopefully you have some of the right units in your box but if you don't you can always farm and get ready for him.
Some hard requirements:
Level 6 Going Merry
Gear 2 Luffy - can be used in conjunction with a Gear 3 Luffy friend to do the 40 stamina version, or Gear 2 to do 30 stamina. It is better to just focus on getting him and certain units leveled rather than using your efforts on Laboon.
Note that these are the requirements for getting 1 copy of Mihawk; farming Mihawk requires a stronger team to quickly and efficiently dispatch him. However, having a Mihawk slasher team can suffice to farm him the next time he returns.
As I mentioned earlier, you can use a Zombie Team to beat him. If you have the components to a Zombie team, then that's alright and you can go ahead and use it to beat Mihawk.
Now, I won't go into details on beating this raid, as there is a whole guide on it. But once you obtain Mihawk and evolve and sufficiently level him, you will find that this game will get much easier and story can be easily progressed up to a certain point.
Looking Ahead
Now we are coming to the last section of this guide. Obtaining Mihawk is just the first step in moving towards end game as he is the easiest Raid Boss to beat. The game's just getting started, so read on to see what else you can do to prepare or expect.
Maxing Mihawk
Ok, so you have one copy of Mihawk, so why would you need another? Well, remember his ridiculous special? It starts at a whopping 32 turns, which means you probably won't be able to use it.
So how would you lower it then? Well, the only way to do this is to feed Mihawk dupes (unevolved works fine) to your original copy. There is an observed ~10% rate of a lowering the Cooldown per dupe, but if you save your dupes on a 2x Skill Up Event (happens occasionally) then you won't need to farm a whole bunch of dupes.
But as I more or less implied, you will have to redo Mihawk's raid numerous times, using many gems in the process. Though it might seem like a waste, Mihawk with a maxed special level is extremely useful and better than a majority of units in the game. So yes, it is worth maxing him.
Other Raid Bosses - Yes, there are others
Though I've briefly mentioned them, there are other raid bosses such as Monster Chopper and Garp. They all have varying degrees of difficulty and require certain teams to beat, meaning preparation is key.
You can find a list of Raid Bosses here.
Of these raid bosses, Monster Chopper, Enel, Blackbeard, and Doflamingo are among the most useful. Doflamingo especially, since he is just a monster with a ridiculous special along with near-perfect stats.
Many of these Raid Bosses are extremely difficult, and almost require Rare Recruit units (non-farmable) to beat them, or at the very least make them easier to do. A lot of preparation goes into being able to beat these Raids, so don't expect them to be as easy as Mihawk.
New Boats in the Training Forests - I hope you aren't too fond of the Merrry...
You might have seen the 0 Stamina Training Forest and maybe even attempted it. If you somehow beat it, kudos to you. If not, that is sort of expected. The 0 Stamina Training Forests represent the hardest content in-game, but the rewards are quite good.
The Hawk Training Forest gives you Mihawk's Coffin Boat ship, which is a better boat for Slashers than the Merry due to the HP boost. This forest is fairly difficult to beat, but definitely feasible once you have obtained some stronger units. Consider this a goal after obtaining Mihawk.
You can find more information on Training Forests here
SugoFest
If you are a F2P player, sugofest is the only time you should ever pull, if you consider pulling. Because gems are precious, though fairly abundant, Sugofest is the best time to attempt any sort of pull since there is a chance of getting a Legend unit.
If you feel your boxing is lacking, especially in Rare Recruit units, then don't be afraid to do 5-10 pulls early on. Sugofest tends to have rate-ups on units that are great for newer players, so there is a good chance on pulling one of them.
What do I do for now?
Alright, so if you are waiting for the next Raid, the routine thing to do is to either farm the highest stamina Fortnight or do 1/2 stamina Story. Fortnight drops, as stated, are great and are usually the only way to raise the special level of many units (skillbooks).
1/2 Stamina Story just means you don't have to needlessly use stamina and just go through story at your own pace; story islands never rotate and will always be there to complete.
If you have any comments or suggestions feel free to PM them to me.