OVERVIEW:
Sword of Convallaria is a turn based tactical RPG set in the world of Iria. It draws inspiration from past tactics games of the pixel art era while also adding it’s own innovations to the genre. It offers strategic gameplay that focuses on interactive objects in the environment and compelling unit skills and team compositions to overcome a variety of enemy types and map layouts. One of the attractive features of the game is the ability to level and use a variety of units. Some of the more common rarity units are quite useful. This is due to how skills are designed allowing units to fill specific and unique rolls on a team. For a full first impressions review check out this post. In this beginner’s guide & tier list for Sword of Convallaria, we’ll cover re-rolling, summoning, units & bond, an aggregated CN tier list, notable non-legendary units, talent/tactics, the main gameplay modes, and how to gain resources.
RE-ROLLING:
Rerolling is fairly straight forward in this game however, unlike other gacha games it doesn’t easily allow you to delete (there is a delay) and restart. Instead you’ll have to use multiple e-mail/account logins for each re-reroll attempt. The process involves playing through the introduction sequence (approximately 10-15 minutes) and then you’ll be able to do your first summon. Collect all the available rewards from the mailbox and quest/login rewards ect. before you pull. You can also play a bit further in the Fool’s Journey to earn more premium currency.
SUMMONING:
Banners have different pity thresholds. For character banners there is a pity at 100 pulls to get a legendary unit (with a 50% chance to get the featured legendary unit if you pull a legendary. The generic legendary rate is 2%). The hard pity is at 180 to get the featured legendary unit. Meaning if you pull 100 you’ll get a legendary unit. If that unit isn’t the featured unit you’ll be guaranteed the featured unit at 180 summons. Pity will carry over to new banners.
At launch, the most popular legendary units to pull for are: Gloria (Watcher), Col (Seeker) and Beryl (Destroyer). This is by no means the only options to aim for. As you’ll learn a variety of units are useful for different encounters and team compositions. Watchers don’t have a direct counter and can be used against all factions. Many of the most used units come from this group, however each faction has its uses. Gloria provides team buffs and mobility while also being able to dish out damage both AOE and single target. Col offers high mobility and can act again after a kill. A potent DPS that can get around the map and take out enemies. Beryl has the passive ability to self buff and restore extra energy at the start of a turn. Her kit comes with some large magic AOE damage skills, crowd control options and even more energy recovery making her a versatile option on the battlefield.
If you don’t hit your target unit during re-rolling, don’t lose heart. I didn’t hit mine either. After a few re-rolls I decided to just play and eventually I did get the legendary unit that I wanted. The ability to use non-legendary units really helps a lot in the early stages making the game fun regardless of who you pull.
GACHA ELEMENTS: A CLOSER LOOK
The overall gacha system is more complex than what appears on the surface. Many factors must be considered to fully evaluate it. There seems to be a lot of confusion and discourse over the summoning system. This is because there’s more at play than just one aspect. The base pull rate, pity system and the ability/rate to gain premium currency must all be factored in.
The base pull rate to get a legendary character at 2% is comparable to other gacha games. However, the pity at 180 is quite high compared to other mobile games that have a pity at 80 summons. In addition, the rate of earning premium currency is relatively low (not surprising and quite similar to other mobile games). The amount of currency you’ll need to guarantee a pull if you hit pity is 27,000 premium currency. This is quite high and for a F2P user this will take a while meaning the amount of units you can pull on as a free player will be very limited.
Overall how does this all play out? I’ve played several other gacha games all with different systems. In those other games you gain a certain instinct about your ability to pull for and get a unit. I would say that in most other gacha games by saving up and being selective it’s possible to get the unit you want. Moreover, I would say that in those other games I was able to get 90% or more of the units I tried for. This is quite different than in Sword of Convallaria. The high pity threshold, and high cost of pulling means that overall it’s much more challenging to get the legendary unit that you want. This also means that overall luck has a bigger impact. Can you still get units you want? Of course. But it’s much more heavily influenced on lucky pulls. Overall as a F2P user you’ll be pulling for much less units and being much more selective. This means that you’ll need to be patient saving up currency and planning/researching to make the most of your resources.
UNITS & BOND:
Characters come with a passive trait and an upgrade tree (that unlocks specific skills and passives). The combination of their passive and unlockable skills makes for unique combinations leading to specific units being able to fit certain roles on a team. These have been cleverly crafted and allow a variety of characters to be viable for different scenarios.
Every 5 levels you’ll be able to rank up your upgrade tree for a specific character. At each odd number rank you’ll have a choice between 2 skill/passive options. Resources to allow you to pick more skills (Castalia) are rare so it’s best to examine what your team needs before making a selection. There are various guides out there that can help you decide on a build. In some cases there is a clear best option but often either choice can be viable depending on what strategy you are going for. If you’re not sure, you can hold off and make a selection at a late time when you know exactly what you need.
Bond will increase the characters overall attributes. This can be gained through bond charms, spirit of hearts and from the characters that you have invited to your house (this feature unlocks from The Fool’s Journey). Bond charms can be exchanged from reputation (gained from your friends). Spirit of hearts refills by 500 each day and you can store a maximum of 3000.
TIER LIST:
This tier list is an aggregate of various CN tier lists (units are listed in alphabetical order in each tier). If there was a discrepancy between lists the unit was placed on the tier between the different ratings (if there was a difference of 2 tiers or more) or on the lower tier (if the difference was 1 off). Units in T0 were universally agreed upon across lists. Only one list included non-legendary units. As with all tier lists a tier ranking isn’t everything. In this game especially it’s better to examine what your team needs and choosing to pull on units that can fill that role. As you can see even non-legendary units like the Papal Ice Priest can be extremely useful on a team. In addition, even though a unit like Teadon is listed as T3, he can have a place on your team if you tailor him for your composition. Not only that his alert passive can kill multiple units especially in the early game, something that you won’t find out from any tier list. If you build him to be a tank, he can help the team a lot during boss encounters as well. Use a tier list as a guide but also read about a unit’s skills and passives before deciding which characters to pull and pass on for your specific team compositions.
T0: Auguste, Beryl, Cocoa, Gloria, Homa, Inanna, Rawiyah (Alter), Taair,
T0.5: Acambe, Agatha, Col, Edda, Saffiyah, Tristan
T1: Abyss, Alexei, Angel, Caris, Dantallion, Divine Grace, Hasna, Layla, Lilywill, Magnus, Momo, Nonowill, Nungal, Pamina, Papal Ice Priest, Samantha, Schacklulu, Simona,
T2: Ballista, Crimson Falcon, Faycal, Garcia, Iggy, Leonide, Maitha, Miguel, Nergal, Nightingale, Rawiyah, Xavier,
T3: Guzman, Teadon,
*Non-legendary units are listed in bold italic
NOTABLE NON-LEGENDARY UNITS:
One of the standout features of this game is the attention to each characters’ skill set. Units are carefully crafted allowing most characters the ability to fill specific and unique roles on a team even for non-legendary units. In this section, we will examine some notable non-legendary units that many free to play users should be able to gain access to easily.
Papal Ice Priest:
This guy is a beast. Consistent AOE damage with an AOE knockback. Don’t underestimate the value of knockback especially on more challenging encounters or maps that have cliffs/explosives.
Angel:
One of the best non-legendary healers with both single and AOE healing plus the ability to hand out buffs. Super helpful and a core component on a balanced team.
Divine Grace:
Ranged knockback and increased DPS if you can maintain 3 buffs on this unit. One of the better ranged units until you get a legendary replacement.
Blade:
A highly evasive unit/pseudo tank. With multiple skills that can grant evasion this unit can become invaluable in tough encounters where you need to tank/dodge hits.
Stormbreaker:
Massive AOE damage. You can get multiple extra AOE swings depending on if units are finished off. She can easily clear a pack of units but does struggle sometimes in getting into range on the right turn.
Stinger:
One of the highest damaging units in my arsenal. If you build him properly, he can deal extra damage depending on the enemies remaining health. You can finish off units and/or damage a second unit if they are in the right vicinity. Combine that with weapons that do DOT damage and you can output a high amount of damage on this unit.
Crimson Falcon:
Decent damage with high mobility. If you need a seeker, Falcon is a good option. The added mobility on a kill is super helpful to reposition either offensively or defensively.
This is only a brief look at the array of non-legendary units that can help your team. I would encourage you to check out each unit’s skills and experiment. After the launch of the game, numerous content creators and members of the community started to see the power of these more common units. It’s refreshing for a mobile title to allow these types of units to have a place and function in the game.
TALENT/TACTIC SKILLS:
Talent trees will boost the stats of units in specific factions. It also unlocks specific tactic skills that you as the commander can use in battle. The tactic skills can be very helpful in combat especially ones that allow you to act again, reposition/heal or gain extra energy. Each tactic can have its use depending on the situation. As you progress further, gaining resources to do upgrades will be more scarce so consider focusing on specific talent trees/skills first before branching out. Unlocking skills from factions (especially destroyer) and increasing overall starting tactical points will help a lot during the early stages.
GAMEPLAY MODES:
There are 5 main gameplay modes. Even though some gameplay modes are gated with energy, if you switch between them you can play for hours. At launch, there is quite a lot of content to explore.
1. Spiral of Destinies:
The main campaign story mode takes place here. It does not require energy to play. Choices you make can affect the ending you receive. The campaign allows you to recruit and build a team that is specific to this mode. It includes a full system to upgrade units and gear that is unique and separate from other gameplay options .
2. The Fool’s Journey:
This is where many of the features of the game are unlocked. Missions here do require energy and you use the units you gain from the gacha system.
3. Crossing Worlds:
This is where you can farm resources to upgrade characters/gear. Extra rewards can be earned by completing specific missions that rotate daily.
4. Tower of Conquest:
This is the challenge mode for Sword of Convallaria. This mode resets each week. Players progress through a tower with each new flooring offering an increased level of difficulty. Enemies/gameplay on each floor is setup with specific modifiers that you have to adapt to. These unique and challenging encounters will push your team’s limits and allow you to focus on developing strategies to overcome them. There are rewards for your 1st time clear as well as weekly rewards.
5. Clash:
This is the PVP mode. Each player sets up defenses and selects an array of units to defend. Other players can then attack. Points are gained for units and structures that are defeated. PVP so far is ok but it does feel simple and somewhat unfinished compared to the PVE content. Matching making needs more work as you can easily by paired up against others that are far more powerful.
RESOURCES:
Quests reward play in all 4 game modes so it’s best to alternate between them all. Rewards from Spiral of Destinies will be given as your progress through the campaign and are received once you exit that mode. In particular, the Dawn starter quest gives a lot of resources for progressing in the main campaign.
Daily Extra Rewards:
The Crossing Worlds will feature missions that give extra rewards that rotate daily. These will unlock as your progress through The Fool’s Journey and make up your daily quests. Memory Retrieval, Weapon Trial and Tarot Residual are nice to farm to gain unit shards, weapons and tarot cards respectively. The other option to passively farm unit shards is by placing them in your home. This will unlock from The Fool’s Journey and you can access this option from the Home Decoration option and then selecting the knight’s helmet icon.
Events:
Events are a great time to get resources through the special event quests. They often involve fun and light side stories.
Currency Exchange:
There is a currency exchange in the shop that allows you to convert specific currencies into other types. This is where you can convert premium currency into summon tickets.
Voyage Memento:
These quests offer a lot of rewards like legendary units and gear. Make sure to take a look and complete them as you progress. Often you can focus on the quests that are lower on the list and as you complete those the others will also be finished along the way.
Tips for Players New to Gacha:
If you are new to the gacha genre, in most cases you will be saving your premium currency and only pull for specific units that you know you need on your team. By researching upcoming banners and characters you’ll be able to decide who to pull for and who to pass on. This enables you to save enough currency to be able to acquire the unit that you want.
WEAPONS/GEAR:
Gear can be farmed in the Weapon Trial (unlocked through Fool’s Journey and accessed in Crossing Worlds). You’ll also get gear items from quest rewards/voyage memento. As you progress gear will cost more and more to upgrade and the resources to upgrade it will become more scarce as you will also need to farm/exchange for other upgrade items. Be more selective in the gear that you do upgrade with more emphasis on long term investments (legendary gear).
TAROT WHISPER:
Tarot can be farmed in the Tarot Residual (unlocked through Fool’s Journey and accessed in Crossing Worlds). Building the best tarot whisper is getting into end game territory. As you level up each tarot at specific levels they will reveal a random passive attribute. This will make getting the right passives a long term goal. Some of the more popular choices for tarot includes: Dream of the Magician (AOE damage), Verdict of Justice (increase critical hit chance), Majesty of the Emperor (increase damage against healthy enemies) and Mercy of the High Priestess (increased healing) to name a few. The best tarot will vary depending on the mission, character and the passives that are unlocked.
CODES:
Here are various codes that can be used to receive certain resources. These were released at launch. They may or may not still be active depending on when you start the game and your region. You can enter these codes in the settings menu (redeem). Codes are case sensitive:
SOCFORCE, SOCCREATOR, SOCMTASHED, SOCENLAUNCH, SOCTACTICS, SOCMLSTN40K, SOC20KDC, SOCTLP, SOCUBER, SOCBRAXO, SOCDORO
CLOSING TIPS:
There’s a lot of flexibility in the units that are usable in this game. Take a look at each character’s skills and passives even the common rarity ones. Focus on team compositions and specifically what you need for a good team (ex. tank, healer, DPS, utility/crowd control, buffers/debuffers, AOE/single target damage) and synergy between units. If you’re having difficulty on an encounter you can utilize the backtracking option that allows you to flip through previous turns and continue from there. Most of the more challenging maps involve a mechanic that if utilized will make it much easier. For example, using explosive barrels or pushing enemies off cliffs ect. Experiment with different characters and enjoy your journey in Sword of Convallaria!
Thanks for checking out this guide friend! Neon Vanguard is about curating and reviewing games in the mobile and indie space. Leading the charge to illuminate and help you find new games that you are passionate about. If you enjoyed this content, please like, share and subscribe. Your support is greatly appreciated. Interested in other similar games? Check out our latest reviews.
Image Credit: SOC
Leave a Reply