Summoners war: Sky Arena, is a turn-based strategy MMOG (Massively Multiplayer Online Game) Gacha game developed and published by Gamevil and Com2Us. The game was launched globally on 12 June 2014 for both Androidd and iOS devices. According to Sensor Tower, Summoners War: Sky Arena has made approximately $1.35 billion in worldwide player spending in both Android and iOS devices.
What is a Gacha game?
Gacha games are virtual games that adopt the capsule-toy vending machine mechanic. The reason why people worldwide are attracted to gacha games is because of the thrill they get when they obtain a specific unit or item by spending their in-game currency to acquire a specific character or item they want from the game. With that said, as you’ve guessed, companies make their dollars from offering packages that sells their virtual currencies.
There are many other gacha games out there, just to name a few, Epic Seven, Dragon Ball Z Dokkan Battle, Fate/Grand Order (FGO), Fire Emblem Heroes (FEH) as well as Langrisser. Needless to say, each of these games have their unique charms, but for Summoners War, it would be that they are the OG of gacha games and the first ones to bring RTA live.
RTA – Real Time Arena
Download Summoners WarObjectives of the game
To be honest, this is entirely up to you to define, what is your end-game? What do you want to achieve? If you’re a hero collector and you’re looking to collect all the different types of heroes, your end-game would be filling up your monster book. But, if your objective is to be the best of the very best by competing in player versus player (pvp) your goal would be hitting high rank in RTA or going pro by competing in the SWC (Summoners War Championship).
With that said, even though it is inevitable for you to step into the world of pvp when it comes to Summoners War, it’s also equally important for you to enjoy the pve aspects of the game before you deep dive into pvp. With over 1000 monsters for you to collect, each unit needs different sets of runes, different stats, you’ll need to go enjoy these process before deep diving into the game, otherwise this game would feel more like a chore as compared to something that you actually enjoy.
Different attributes of units
What’s interesting about this game is that for every monster that Com2Us has released, they come in 5 different attributes. Think about it this way, Pikachu electric type pokemon, imagine 5 different types of Pikachu each different element, fire, water etc. Yes. Sorry to put that image in your mind but it was the simplest way to explain it. Circling it back down, there are 5 different attributes of units in the game –
- Fire
- Water
- Wind
- Dark
- Light
If you’ve played similar games, you’ll have a rough idea of what this is. Here we have something called elemental advantage and disadvantage, the picture below will explain their relationship.
Lets visualize this, if you have a fire unit and you’re going against a water unit, naturally you’ll be at an elemental disadvantage. However, if you’re facing a wind unit, you’re at an elemental advantage. On the right you can see that light and dark are both very effective against one another.
Skills and abilities
Each monster has a different role to play, since each of them have different skills set, they can either be the DPS, Support or Tank. You can level up their skills by fusing Devilmon or fusing the same unit into your desired unit. Unfortunately you cannot select your preferred skill to level up, you can only pray to RNG and hope it lands on the one you want so that you can save up on resources. By skilling them up, your skills get improved, how? Either their cool down decreases or their damage increases or your units get tankier, so one way or another you’ll see improvements in your units.
Therefore, if you’re lucky enough and summoned a 5 star unit do remember to skill it up with your devilmons. If you get duplicates, you can choose to turn them into ancient crystals or feed them into your desired unit (not recommended).
The image below shows one of the most sought after unit, Seara.
From the circles below, you can tell that this is the wind element of this specific unit. The squares on the right hand side gives you a brief description of what this unit does in battle.
Her leader skill is increases the attack speed of the ally monsters by 24%, this means that allies will fill up their attack bars faster with her being placed at the leader spot. (There can only be one leader per fight)
Her first skill manipulates attack bars, so let’s say you rune her at 100% crit rate, she’ll permanently crit and gain attack bar each time she attacks with a normal hit.
Her second skill is what she is known for, bombing the opponent units. The effects are quite clear, after landing a bomb, she will get a turn immediately which can follow up with her third skill.
Immediately setting off bombs on the target will result in them taking massive damage as well as stunning them.
Awakening
Awakening is a process whereby a monster is transformed, changing in appearance, gaining more stats and at times access to new skills.
Evolution and rarity
Units in Summoners war ranges from 1 star to 6 stars, however you can only summon a 5 star monster, you’ll have to evolve them to get them to 6 stars. Taking the monster below as an example.
This unit is currently 5 stars, so you will need 5 units at 5 stars to evolve him to 6 stars. Once the evolution process is complete, he will return to level 1 and you will have to level him up again to max level 40.
Summoning
The most important part of any gacha game – summoning time. Will you be full of salt or throwing confetti on yourself?
Unlike most games, Summoners war does not have a banner for you to summon a particular unit. In short, you can only summon regular units in using Mystical Scrolls, Legendary Scrolls, Light and Dark Scrolls or Summoning stones.
Note: You can only summon light and dark units from light and dark scrolls.
Exclusive summoning stones are obtained by participating in guild wars or random drops in dungeons. From the picture you can see the rotation of the current monsters, so if there’s a particular unit you want from the list, you can summon it now or you can save for the next rotation.
Acquisition rate
Mystical scrolls
Exclusive Summons
Light and Dark Scrolls
Progression in game
Rune are items that you can power up and equip on your monsters to make them stronger. There are 6 rune slots available for each monster. When you equip a certain set of runes, you will gain bonus stat effects. For example, if you equip 4 fatal runes, you will get the set bonus of attack +35%. With that said, there’s no fixed rule for you to rune your units, you can be as adventurous as you want and try out different sets of runes on your units. Below are the different sets of runes you can use to rune your units.
- Energy – HP +15%
- Fatal – Attack Power +35%
- Blade – Critical Rate +12%
- Swift – Attack Speed +25%
- Focus – Accuracy +20%
- Guard – Defense +15%
- Endure – Resistance +20%
- Shield – All shield 3 turns with 15% of HP
- Revenge – Counter attack +15%
- Will – Immunity +1 turn
- Nemesis – Attack Gauge +4% for every 7% HP lost
- Vampire – Life Drain +35%
- Destroy – 30% of damage dealt will reduce up to 4% of enemy’s max HP
- Despair – Stun Rate +25%
- Violent – Get Extra Turn +22%
- Rage – Critical Damage 40%
- Fight – Allies Attack +8%
- Determination – Allies Def +8%
- Enhance – Allies HP +8%
- Accuracy – Allies ACC +10%
- Tolerance – Allies RES +10%
Runes and awakening materials are both obtainable by clearing dungeons in game.
Conclusion
It is important for you to farm, enhance and upgrade your runes. Runes quality are essentially what differentiates players, 2 players can have the same unit but only 1 will be the superior one. Now, if you’re into grinding games, units acquisition as well as brawling it out with players worldwide, you’ve come to the right place. This game is everything you’re looking for. But don’t take out word for it, give it a download, try this game out and let us know how you feel about it. At the end of the day, the most important thing about gaming is enjoyment.
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