Guides

## Player Created Guides

*Note: These guides and Tier lists should be understood as opinions of their individual authors and as such, caveat emptor.*

### Siege (STPT Discord)

#### General Tips

* General Priority should be to max level your units to progress further in the story to unlock better passive xp, gold and goo from Will. This is the primary way to gain resources in this game.
* 1★ can be scrapped.
* All resource investments are returned when a unit is scrapped or used as a non-primary promotion.

#### **Hawkins & Stores**

* **HNL** - Nothing special to report on this
* **Club Boss** - Try to find a club with a different time zone that is convenient for you when it is open.
* **General Store** - Always purchase Goo for gold and 60x 2★Fragments and 5x 3★Fragments from the Daily General Store it is the most cost efficient use of gems in the game better than a 10 radio calls for 2700 gems.
* **Portal & Scrap Store** - Always buy the Fragments as they are the most cost efficient.
* **P2W** - If you want to spend money only buy the daily offer of 60 gems and 10x 3★Fragments for a low price, as it is the most cost efficient use of money even when comparing the bonus offers for completing a stage or reaching new level caps.

#### Combat & Usability Tier List

* The 1st stage is the most important as it dictates your resources going in the 2nd and 3rd stage.
* As such generally offense is stronger than defensive with the exception of shields and heals.

**Buff & Debuff Value** - Shields=Heals=Dodge>Bravery>>>Vulnerability>Armor=Weakness

* An important tactic is to leave an enemy at the end of the 1st and/or 2nd stage alive if you can heal through it while you activate dice hitting nothing, this provides bonus energy and can ensure your units have Activations ready or units healed to full for the next round.
* It's generally not advised to use natural 3 star units as non-primary promotion fodder as they are harder to come by & balance changes but you may want to make that decision if it means you can progress quite a bit further in the story.
* A 3★ is equivalent to 9x 2★.
* Important breakpoint is that it takes 4x 3★ is needed for a 5★unit.
* While it is true that 2★ cap at 4.5★ value I wouldn't worry about it too much as going past level 160 only becomes relevant at Story Stage 10 and you can always use them as fodder for your 3★ unit to go from 4.5★ to 5★.
* CAPS are considered S Tier

**Tier List**

Orange - 2★MIKE=3★NANCY >>> 3★Max > 3★Erica

Purple - 2★Eleven > 2★Funshine > 3★Eleven

Green - 2★Dustin = 3★Hopper = 3★Lucas

Blue - 2★Mr Clarke > 3★Steve

Red - 3★Slightshot Lucas

**Tier List Notes**

* 3 Stars are evaluated based at lvl 121 with their fully upgraded Reactive.
* Generally you want to avoid red as their units are subpar but you may reach a point around 4★-4.5★ when you may need to make one due to optimal resources.
* OMike & ONancy are the support King & offensive Queen of the game.
* P2★Eleven is better due to the harder difficulty spikes against bosses & elites.
* GHopper is useless if hes not one of the highest level units in your squad or else he may just get focus fired.
* BClarke is better than BSteve due to the tactic of charging activations when only one enemy is left.

### AaronBurrSir (STPT Discord)

#### General Tips

* Save your Green Goo consumables until you actually need them! Your characters will hit breakpoints every 20 levels starting at level 21.
	+ To see how much Green Goo you need per level, go to this page.
	+ Since you need so much goo at some of the higher levels, it makes more sense not to open your consumables until you hit level 20, 40, 60 and so on. The reason for this is so that you're maximizing the amount they'll be worth, since this is entirely dependent on how many times you've upgraded the Will the Wizard Castle Byers AFK Rewards.
	+ Only open the exact amount you need if possible so you can save them for other characters or at higher levels.

#### Best Starting Team

At the current writing of this guide, these 5 characters are the best starters you can have and will very likely carry you to mid game if you manage to find them from star shards or radio pulls, or by purchasing them directly from any of the in game stores.

* Purple - Eleven Wide-Eyed Wonder
	+ Her level 61 reactive activates all Purple dice on the board when facing off against bosses and her Active does extra damage against Elites/Bosses.
	+ The best part is you unlock her in Story, and you can purchase additional copies of her in the Scrap Store
* Red - Lucas Sinclair Fireworks Expert
	+ His Activated skill hits all enemies for a decent amount of damage and his Reactive skill pairs well with characters that can give him Bravery.
	+ Same as Eleven, you unlock him during Story, and you can purchase additional copies of him in the Scrap Store.
* Orange (Yellow) - Mike Wheeler Boyfriend Material
	+ Possibly one of the strongest characters in the game, even as a 2 Star character, you'll likely use Mike until you're no longer able to past level 160.
	+ His Activated skill does a decent amount of damage, and delaying monsters from using their abilities can literally help you win by delaying incoming damage.
	+ Additionally, his Reactive skill gives all members a shield worth 15% of their max health.
	+ This may not seem like a lot, but when paired with Armor you're preventing a ton of damage to your characters.
	+ You unlock him during Story, and you can purchase additional copies of him in the Scrap Store.
	+ He also pairs really well with Nancy Wheeler Aspiring Journalist later in the game if you're lucky enough to find her from the Radio.
* Blue - Mr. Clarke
	+ Hands down one of the best healers in the game, even after a recent nerf.
	+ His Activated ability allows him to heal your team for 20% and then heal the most damaged member gain for 20%.
	+ Since his ability doesn't go off when you auto until characters are really low on health, sometimes its best to control when his heal goes off manually so you don't waste it.
	+ His Reactive isn't that great since you rarely match 5 dice, but when it does go off it removes one debuff from each character on your team.
	+ Unfortunately at the time of writing this, Mr. Clarke is not available in normal Story progression. You can acquire him one of two ways:
		- Randomly from a Radio Draw
		- Occasionally he will be a character for sale in the Portal Store.
		- If you haven't gotten lucky pulling him in the early pulls, he is well worth the 4800 Portal Tokens required to purchase.
	+ Similar to Orange Mike, he's one of the best healers in the game until you can no longer use him. (Both Mr. Clarke and Mike can't level past 160.)
	+ Past level 160, the best healer will be Scoops Ahoy! Steve Harrington.

* Green - Dustin Camp Know Where
	+ His Active skill activates an entire row of random dice and can give a random team member Dodge.
	+ His Reactive gives himself and another ally Bravery for 5 turns at the beginning of a mission, really nice for Boss fights or Lab levels.
	+ Pairs very, very well with Nancy Wheeler Aspiring Journalist if you're able to find her early on.
	+ You unlock him during Story, and you can purchase additional copies of him in the Scrap Store.

### re-animator420 (STPT Subreddit)

#### **Portal**

* Portal is different as the story, main difference is of course that the health follows you into battles. Also the health of enemies follows as well! If you have lost a battle and retry with a different team you'll notice that the enemies health doesn't refill.
* I always start a portal with a secondary team, earn a few bonuses and switch my team to my first. This way I don't lose my leveled-up characters in unlucky first battles.
* A very effective strategy in portal is to leave one weak enemy alive so you can misfire and reload energies for all characters for the next wave or next battle. Note that the charges follow your team to the next battle, use this to your advantage.
* When you feel confident enough you don't have to take path through first-aid, resurrection or character+. I usually choose to fight as many battles as possible, this way I maximize my profits.

#### **Investigations**

* I keep a few one-star characters of every color in my roster for investigations, don't scrap them all!

#### **General Tips**

* Note that in Hawkins store you can buy ~~25~~ 50 green goo, once a day for amount of gold - buy this every day, you usually have gold in excess.
* Shop has free daily, weekly and monthly offers. Get these! You can get 20 diamonds and 2 x 3-stars every day. Weekly 20 diamonds and 5 x 3-stars, monthly 50 diamonds and 10 x 3-stars. (NOTE: welcome offers might have to expire first for the free stuff to appear - info on this?)
* If you press and hold on a character (including enemies) in a battle you'll see the status effects. You can click on the status effect for more info. You WILL need this to win! Status effects are also displayed smaller in green but check what's the difference is armor/shield and Weakness/Vulnerability.

#### **My Team**

* I usually roll with Purple Eleven, Red Lucas, Green Dustin, Yellow Mike and Blue Mr. Clarke. This fits my style of play - Lucas is handing out constant pressure on enemies, Mike is really useful because of attack delay and reasonable damage, Eleven Dishes out purple damage to the bosses and elites, Dustin adds bravery and clears the board and I'll try to keep Mr. Clarke always charged for health.