Beginner's Tips

* There is no such thing as "Nat 5" in Man or Vampire; every companion can be leveled from 1★ to 5★.
* 1★ and 2★ companions are mostly food for your Main (vampire), and you'll generally want to buy them whenever you can (with  gold only).
* 3★ companions are usually the least worth purchasing. They should only be bought with  gold and with a good discount. If you are a new player and don't have a full 3★ or higher team, you may consider it worth the price.
* 5★ companions are the only companions really worth buying with  gems.
* If you have tons of  gold, at the end of the day, every summon is worth buying because of the affinity system.
* It is not worth it to turn 2★ companions into 3★ and so on using Soul Awakening. Only upgrade 4★ companions into 5★, and only if it is a really good companion (see recommended companions below).
* As soon as you are able, research **Melee Class Upgrade I** to level 10. This research regenerates 1,000 HP after every fight for all melee characters. With this research, you can run 2 melees + 2 archers/snipers and not need a priest. It helps tremendously in early/mid game.
* Think twice about investing too much into 5★ characters that are below max level 180. It is very hard to get 10 of the material to enhance their max level.
* Don't waste the materials to upgrade a character's stars unless he/she is already 4★. It uses the same materials no matter if it's from 1→2★ or 4→5★. You will get many 4★ companions even in your first week.

* When you evolve a companion from 4→5★, it will have a max level of 161. It unfortunately does not get a random max level between 161-200.

* If you choose to enhance the max level of a 5★ character, choose a really OP one. Check the Tier List for characters with 4.8+ user rating.

* Try to save up to  × 650K gold to buy 5★ with  gold. Once you start making enough  gold, you can buy shitty 5★ just to destroy them for materials to increase the max level of your better companions.

* Stun seems to be one of the best sub stats you can get on your weapon, especially for PvP.

* When you level new characters on Hell it is useful to keep some low level items in your cache that have the sub-stat to survive a lethal blow with 1 HP. Equip this on a low level character to prevent them from getting one-hit while autoing. Death can easily happen even if they are in slot 4 of your team if your torch runs out.

* Buy the  × 1500 Gem Chest as it has a great ROI.

* Farm areas that have at least 1 strong character as a 4★ drop in their cube rewards.

* Think twice about turning a human companion into a vampire if they are 5★ but not level 200 yet. Weaker 5 ★ can be turned into vampires whenever desired, but for strong companions it is recommended to only turn when they reach level 200. You should also consider future updates - the max level may be increased later.

* A good map to grind is Hell-Graveyard because it can be autoed with 4★ quite easily. Amazoness on max loyalty has some very big critical strike % bonus which are useful if you are using a companion such as Raven to level up your other companions.

* Generally speaking, ranged > casters. Even healers seem not very important (currently) once you get some research into HP regeneration.

* For team building, a suggested comp is 1 tank + 3 ranged damage dealers. A suggestion for the 3 ranged is Raven (super high damage), Julian (strong damage and boosts all ranged DPS), Amazoness (critical strike loyalty plus decent damage). Sophia is a good choice for a tank because she recovers HP and MP when she kills something, and her active skill nearly doubles damage for 2 turns. If new content requires healing, Shylock would be best because he heals and also boosts damage.

* If you cannot pull Raven 5★, get him from Forgotten Desert on Hero difficulty as a 4★. Enhance him to 160 and then evolve to 5★ once you can. He will be 161, but if you don't get unlucky 1 enhancement should be enough to get him to 180 and he will be quite OP from there.
* If you want to increase the  Bat Scroll duration, Rey, Viola, Pegasus, Karel and Third Eye should always be recruited for their affinity.