This guide will show you every piece of valuable information a beginner needs to know — along with all the things you should and shouldn’t do as soon as you start playing the game.
Starting Out (Rerolling)
Here are a few things that you might want to know if you want to reroll in this game.
Is Rerolling Necessary?
Rerolling in SAO:VS isn’t necessary if you just want to have fun or clear the endgame, but I still highly recommend that you reroll. Not only is the rerolling process much quicker in SAO:VS than most other gacha games, but top-tier characters here possess clear advantages over those who are not.
How To Reroll (Step-by-Step)
SAO: VS features an infinite rerolling system which will be made available to you as soon as you clear Chapter 0 (Prologue). Upon clearing the Prologue, you will be guided by the game’s tutorial system to the Scout page automatically: There, you’ll be able to pull 10 characters in the “Starter Scout With Redraws” banner: From there, you can simply hit “Retry” to pull over and over again until you get the units you want: As you can see from the Summon results in the image above, you can get multiple SSR characters and Ability Cards in one pull. Don’t stop rerolling until you’ve pulled at least 2 Characters and Ability Cards!
Who To Reroll For
The only three SSR characters you need to reroll for are:
[The Black Swordsman] Kirito (Recommended) [Dragon Tamer] Silica [The Flash] Asuna
Any of these characters can carry you far into the early to mid-game, but the one I personally recommend picking up is [The Black Swordsman] Kirito for his fantastic self-recovery ability. As for Ability Cards, you can choose whatever you want to pick up as long as you have any of the three characters listed above.
Team Building Guide
For team building, I recommend investing in at least:
1 Fire-element Character 1 Water-element Character 1 Wind-element Character
It doesn’t really matter what Class they are, as long as you bring at least one Attacker or Ranger who’ll fulfill your DPS needs. Enemies have weaknesses that can be exploited too, but so do your characters:
All Classes & Roles
There are four character Classes in the game: I highly recommend bringing at least one Attacker or Ranger in your team, as they often have the biggest DPS output in the game. To check a character’s Element type and Class, simply check the class emblem that’s located on the upper-left part of every Character’s portrait – as shown in the image above.
Combat Guide (How Battles Work)
Fast-paced, real-time combat is where Sword Art Online: Variant Showdown truly shines. Listed below are all of the combat mechanics you should master – even in the early game.
Switching
Switching allows you to switch between your three characters. Using this mechanic, you can cycle through your characters to either bypass the cooldown of their skills or avoid enemy attacks. To switch, simply click the portrait of whomever character you’d like to switch into: Switching is one of the most important mechanics to master, as it maximizes the amount of DPS you can do within a limited timeframe.
Evading
Evading allows your character to quickly travel a short distance in any direction – allowing them to potentially avoid enemy attacks. To evade, click the “Evade” button located in the bottom-right part of your combat screen: I highly recommend that you practice timing your evades correctly. This mechanic is especially useful when you’re surrounded by mobs of enemies or when you’re about to get hit by a telegraphed or high-damage attack.
Parrying
Some bosses execute a series of powerful, unavoidable attacks when they reach a certain HP percentage. To counter this, you have the Parry mechanic which you can use to completely negate the boss’ attacks by successfully tapping a series of timed circles: You can treat this mechanic as high-stakes QTEs (Quick-time Events). If you fail to tap correctly or run out of time, the boss will be able to inflict a lot of damage on your Character.
Awakening
An Awakening can be triggered as soon as the Awakening Gauge is filled up, which is the red bar located right below your character’s HP Gauge: To fill your Awakening Gauge, simply land your characters’ attacks or tank enemy attacks head-on! Once you Awaken a character, their stats will be increased and their skill cooldowns will be temporarily removed – allowing you to spam skills for as long as the Awaken status lasts. To activate Awakening and fully consume your Awakening Gauge, click the “Awaken” button located at the bottom of your combat screen – as highlighted in the image above.
Finishers
All Characters have unique Finishers, and they can be used to inflict heavy damage against enemy bosses. Finishers can only be used during an Awakening, so to activate them, you must first activate “Awaken” and then click the “Finisher” button, which is located where the “Awaken” button used to be: Finishers can be activated as long as your Awakening Gauge has a charge, so make sure to only use Finishers before the very end of an Awakening phase!
Burst
Most boss monsters have a Burst Gauge, and they can be filled by dealing as much uninterrupted damage as you can to the boss: Once the Burst Gauge is full, the boss will be knocked-down and will not be able to react to your attacks or even move at all. Use this opportunity to blast them to high heaven by spamming as many skills in their ugly face as you can!
Normal Attacks & Skills Guide
Here are the key differences between Normal Attacks and Skills in this game – along with how to access them during combat. Normal Attacks inflict non-elemental Physical Damage on your enemies. You can use them by clicking the “Attack” button in the bottom-right part of your combat screen: Skills, on the other hand, are divided into Skill 1, Skill 2, and Finishers. You can use Skill 1 and Skill 2 just by clicking any of the two icons highlighted in the image below: You can only use a character’s Finisher during their Awakening phase, but you don’t necessarily need to rely on Finishers to reach high DPS. A character’s Skill 1 and Skill 2 will do just fine, since they often deal elemental damage which hurts enemies way more than Normal Attacks.
All Stats Explained
Here’s a breakdown of each in-game stat, and what upgrading them individually can do for your character. Some characters may require a mix of two or more stats to be more effective, but generally, you’d want to stick to improving the individual stats they’re notable at.
Powering Up Units (How To Get Stronger)
Here are all of the ways that you can increase your Characters’ effectiveness in combat – allowing you to clear increasingly harder stages.
Best Way To Farm EXP/Level Up Fast
The best way to level up your characters in the early game is to Enhance them via EXP Chips. And the best way to farm EXP Chips is by:
Farming EXP quest stages (Recommended) Collecting Daily & Weekly rewards Collecting Event rewards
You can also buy EXP Chips in the Shop, but I don’t recommend doing this until after you’ve farmed more than enough Digits to spend on powering up your three main units first.
Primary Objectives/Tasks For Beginners
Here are the three most important tasks that you should complete ASAP as a beginner in Sword Art Online: Variant Showdown.
Objective #1: Complete Chapter 1
Completing Chapter 1 [The Beginning of the Story] in its entirety will unlock all of the game modes you need to access as a beginner.
Chapter 2 Daily Quests Limited-time Quests
Clearing the first chapter also gives you quite a lot of resources like Variant Crystals and character upgrade materials from the get-go, so make sure to prioritize it!
Objective #2: Clear Main Story, Side Story, & Extra Story Stages
The Main, Side, and Extra Stories are different from Story Quests. For one, they have fewer stages to clear and they have a fixed difficulty – unlike Story Quests that require you to clear more than 10 stages to complete and have three separate difficulties. These “Stories” may look like optional content at first glance, but make no mistake – they will give you a lot of valuable items like SSR Ability Cards and Variant Crystals when cleared!
Objective #3: Clear Challenge Missions
Challenge Missions can be cleared by doing tasks that are tailored specifically for beginners. There are of course different types of Challenge Missions, but even as a newbie with only two to seven days of playtime, you’ll be able to clear them with ease! Completing Challenge Missions will give you tons of F2P resources and materials that you can use to improve your characters early.
Important Items To Farm
Here are some of the most important items in the game that you should start farming as early as possible.
Sword Art Online: Variant Showdown General Tips
Here are five of the best tips that you should know as a newbie player in Sword Art Online: Variant Showdown.
Tip #1: Clear Hard and Extra Difficulty Stages
After clearing the Normal Difficulty stages of the Story Quests, I highly recommend clearing the Hard and Extra Difficulty stages next. You can farm a lot of Variant Crystals by doing this, not to mention other resources like:
Digits EXP Chips Class Records Skip Tickets Ability Cores
Having all these will give you a massive advantage in the early game, since you’re going to need all the resources you can get to upgrade your units as a beginner.
Tip #2: Visit The Digit Shop For Great Deals
As of the moment, there are only two items available in the Digit Shop:
Training Packs (L) Elemental Training Packs (Rotational Item)
Once you’ve farmed enough Digits (around 1,000,000 Digits or so), I recommend buying a few stocks of the Training Pack (L) for your first week. Buying Elemental Training Packs is mostly optional in the early game, but can be a good investment if you lack the materials needed to Rank Up one of your three main characters.
Tip #3: Perform Just Switches in Battles
Switching characters mid-battle is good, but doing Just Switches is much better if you want your runs to be as flawless and quick as possible. You can perform a Just Switch by Switching characters at the very last second before an enemy attack lands. Doing this not only completely negates the enemy’s attack, but also enables your character to perform a devastating counterattack with increased damage. Master this mechanic and you’ll be able to breeze through most enemy bosses in the game!
Tip #4: Save Your Variant Crystals For One Banner/Pickup Scout
As a beginner, you will have quite a lot of Variant Crystals to pull units with, but that doesn’t mean that you should. Unless you’re a massive P2W whale with no issue spending hundreds – if not thousands of IRL money to pull for every character there is, then it is in your best interest to pull sparingly. As of this writing, there is no pity system in Sword Art Online: Variant Showdown. The best thing you can do is save up all you can for one banner and hope for the best!
Tip #5: Bind Your Account ASAP
If you don’t want to lose all of your progress, I strongly advise binding your account on your very first day of playing the game. Sword Art Online: Variant Showdown requires you to create a Bandai Namco ID Account (BNID) to bind your account, which can get a bit tedious if you don’t have a Twitter, LINE, or Apple account. Nevertheless, it is very important that you do this immediately, as this game’s backup system is a little dated. You will lose your account easily if you’re not careful!
Sword Art Online: Variant Showdown Do’s & Don’ts
Here are two brief lists of things that you absolutely should and shouldn’t do as a beginner in Sword Art Online: Variant Showdown. Do’s:
Do your Daily and Weekly Tasks consistently Do complete Chapter 1 ASAP Do clear Main, Side, & Extra Story stages Do clear harder difficulties for more resources Do try to invest in only three characters in the early game Do buy a few Ability Card slots for convenience Do clear your Daily Quest game modes consistently Do participate in Limited Time Quests (Events) often Do clear Challenge Missions as soon as you unlock them Do try to perform Just Switches during Combat often
Don’ts:
Don’t waste your Summon Tickets and Variant Crystals by pulling on several banners at once Don’t leave the game with your Stamina beyond max capacity Don’t spend too many Digits on Shop items Don’t forget to bind your account to a BNID Don’t invest in characters you don’t plan on using long term Don’t ignore elemental advantages and disadvantages Don’t forget to invest in at least 1 Fire-element, 1 Wind-element, and 1 Water-element character Don’t use your Finisher until after most of your Awakening Gauge is depleted Don’t forget to avoid getting surrounded by mobs or telegraphed attacks by Evading Don’t spam or button mash your way out of a fight
