Strategies for Beginners

Basic Strategies for Beginners

I. Introduction
This is a topic intended as a learning resource based from my personal experience. If you are new to the game and you are sick of losing to high-level players who got lots of characters while you have very few, then reading this might help you win more games. If you are already a good player, then you are welcome to post your own comments or correct wrong information I included in my posts.

II. About Me



My main account's username here is Laphy, and 20 more other accounts I own. I am definitely not the best player here but I know quite a lot on how to get there. I have several accounts with at least 20 win streaks (most without chars), and the highest level I achieved here is level 54. Don't mind my streak and ratio here, I frequently experiment teams on ladder (lmao). It's fair to say I have enough experience with low-level and high-level plays. This N-A is a bit different from the older years so you might have to experiment on some weird and new interactions here. And that is precisely what lured me here - weird and new. I love teams using characters who are not commonly played, or playing around an unusual strategy like paralysis locking and permastun strategies. Some people might know me for making weird teams but I know how to use meta teams too - I just choose not to.

III. Sections
In this thread, I'll be discussing various ways to help you improve your game. There are several sections here and I will post each section on different posts for organization. The sections for this thread are:

• How to create your team (Carry Role, Support Role, Team Checklist, Sample Teams)
  
  
• How chakra works in the game (Basic Info)
  
  
• Early Game Decisions (Priority Target)
  
  
• Mid Game Decisions (Best Scenario, Worst Scenario)
  
  
• End Game Decisions (Win Condition)
  

(Work in Progress and will be updated by parts)

(1) - How to create your team

The game is a 3-on-3 setting so you will want to use characters that make each other better. You will need to understand what your characters will do and the interaction with other characters, which you'll learn after winning and losing. Remember, characters can have more than 1 role - they can be a Carry and a Support. It depends on how you plan to use them and their skills. This section will focus on the importance of these 2 roles in your games. I'll be listing my thought process on how to make teams.

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Step 1: Pick your team Carry
The team's Carry is the one who will ideally kill enemies - usually by dealing tons of damage. Their skills focus on getting kills. You cannot end the game without dealing damage so you need this. Your team should have at least 1 Carry. It is also possible to have a full team of carries but it comes at a cost. Here are different categories of the Carry role.

Cheap Carries can do lots of damage for easy chakra cost and almost instantly.

Examples: Chouji, Tenten, Young Kakashi, Obito, Hanabi, Dosu, Juzo

Moderate Carries can do even more damage for a bit more cost - usually around 2 chakra cost - or needs prep skills (like Naruto's Clones and Sasuke's Sharingan).

Examples: Naruto, Sasuke, Kiba, Lee, Neji, Young Konan, Sakon, Sasuke (S)

Expensive Carries are slow to do their job but can do powerful or lethal damage. Their skills cost lots of chakra/health, or takes several turns to be good. They are very hard to stop after their set-up is complete and would win 1v1 or even 1v2 very easily.

Examples: Haku, Gaara, Yoroi, Gekko, Kiba (S), Gai (S)

The more expensive your carry is, the more protection they will need to buy time, get chakra, or complete their set-up.

These characters deal lots of damage with their skills and sometimes offer other tools like stuns, chakra drains, damage reductions, and instakills. The primary focus for them is to get stronger and deal more damage without wasting lots of chakra and time. If you do not have a carry, your team will fall behind on damage, and have more risks to take. Having 3 Carries can work but your team will be more defenseless - so do this with caution. It is a common idea to draft your team first by picking your carry. What are their weaknesses and who can help them against that? This is where you pick your 2nd character that synergizes well with the carry or covers their weakness. Finally, you get a 3rd character that can complete the team. The idea is still to have a team carry or core character.

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Step 2: Pick a Support
The team's Support is the one who will ideally make your Carries better. I would classify Support Roles in 2 categories: Team Support and Enemy Disruptor Some supports can belong in both categories. I will discuss these separately.

Team Support have skills mainly focusing on protecting or buffing your other characters by using skills like: heals, damage reductions, destructible defense, increase ally damage, and any effect that helps your carry stay healthy. Their job is to keep your Carry alive so if the Team Supports are being targeted first and your carry is not dying, then they are doing a good job already in supporting the carry. These characters have decent damage or even very little damage but they try to keep allies or themselves alive.

Examples: Sakura, Rin, Iruka, Young Karin, Shizune, Tsunade, Sakura (S)

Enemy Disruptor have skills mainly focusing on disrupting enemy combos by using skills like: reduce enemy damage, increase enemy skill cost/cd, stuns, counters, reflects, paralyze, ignore or invulnerability to friendly effects, anti-DR/DD/invul/heal/counter/reflect effects. This means they usually make it harder for enemies to do their jobs and make it easier to kill them. Some Disruptors are very annoying to deal with (Shikamaru and Kurenai are the best examples) and some enemies want them dead first. If they die first, it is not exactly a total loss because it means your carry is still alive and your opponent is losing chakra trying to kill your supports. Some Carries can also be used for this role which makes them flexible picks.

Examples: Sakura, Tenten, Shikamaru, Ino, Young Yahiko, Young Nagato, Zabuza, Rehabilitated Gaara, Kurenai, Shikamaru (S)

Support Characters in the game are special tags for characters that cannot target enemies with their own skills. They would usually fall under Team Support due to this restriction.

These support characters are generally not focused on damaging, but rather focus on keeping your damage-dealers alive through different methods without thinking too much about the damage it brings. It is almost always recommended to put at least 1 character in the team who can be used as a Disruptor - preferably a stun. This is to avoid potential instakills or to interrupt Action and Control skills that may change the direction of the game.

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Step 3: Team Checklist
This is basically imagining the scenario in your head before playing them. Find out potential problems you will run into:

• Is your team too heavy on chakra?
  
• Do your characters heavily compete for the same cost?
  
• Do you have backups if you get bad chakra?
  
• Is your team good against the meta?
  

These are all those potential problems you have to be open to. This step is optional and can be disregarded if you are feeling confident about your team or open to lose. However, If you are playing in tournaments and wars, this is probably the most important step so read the rules. Very simple step indeed.

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Step 4: Sample Teams
Here are some Beginner-friendly teams I have saved up and am willing to share. Beginner characters have straightforward skills and are very strong but this simplicity could also be a disadvantage in certain times. I recommend using the Team Manager (the white icon beside your 3rd character) to organize your teams.



The first 2 characters in the team have a combo that you plan to exploit (the character's slots may be switched around). This is usually your team's main combo and is a very obvious strategy to see. The 3rd character will try to make this main combo even better or open more combos for the other characters. Some advanced teams all rely on each other to work or the combo will be ruined.

While it is common to make a team that use different chakra types (taijutsu bloodline ninjutsu genjutsu), there is also a strategy to help you gain the chakra your carry needs. This mechanic will be explained on the advanced strategies.

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Color Reference for myself
Cheap
Moderate
Expensive
Terminology
Important Note

(2) - How Chakra Works

This will be short section that will explain how chakra you get chakra. Note that only Zeero has the exact knowledge on how chakra works so we can only ask and speculate at this point. But here are the information we know so far:

• If you start the game first turn, your team will GAIN only 1 chakra. If not, then look below.
  
• Aside from starting the game first turn, all your living characters will generate 1 chakra after you end your turn or when your opponent starts their turn.
  
• If your character dies in the process of using skills and you still haven't ended the turn, that dead character will NOT generate chakra.
  
• Chakra stealing your opponent if they have no chakra will not give you chakra.
  
• Chakra cost changes by skills are not considered friendly or harmful effects.
  
• Muu's duplicates and Gengetsu's Steam Clones will count as living characters and will generate chakra as well. If you have 0 chakra after using the skill, you will gain 1 chakra for each living character including your clones/duplicate.
  
• GAINING chakra is 25% exactly for each (unless specified) while GENERATING chakra is based on your character's current skills
  

The next part covers the chance of getting a specific chakra. This is the information we know so far:

• The overall chakra cost of your current skills of your living characters decides the percentage of what chakra you'll get.
  
• If you have no random chakra costs in your overall chakra costs, you can compute the exact chance you will generate each chakra. The formula for taijutsu chance is: (Total taijutsu cost / overall chakra cost). This formula applies to all chakra types assuming there are no random chakra costs.
  
• If you have a random chakra cost in your current skills, it is not a 25% equal chance for each chakra type. Apparently there is a chaotic randomizer that not even Zeero knows.
  

What do these nonsense numbers imply?
When your team’s current skills cost no random chakra and only taijutsu chakra, you are guaranteed to get taijutsu chakra only. For example, if Alliance Naruto's alternate skill is up and he has no random chakra cost skills (after his counter), then he is guaranteed to gain 1 ninjutsu chakra next turn.

How does this impact your teambuilding?
The usual rainbow team is still a good balance but this also means that having a team that use only 2 or 3 chakra types could work in your favor. Just remember to bring less random chakra cost skills to slightly skew the chance in your favor. Personally, I found that having 3 different chakra type costs instead of 4 generate better chakra for your characters. Just a personal observation.

(3) - Early Game Decisions

There is no fixed method on how to win because teams and chakra pulls will make things different. But here is a demonstration of how I go about my Early Game thought process and decisions:

1. When game starts, try to kill the most threatening character in the enemy team. This should be the one who will counter your main combo or will be the most troublesome for you.
   
2. If you are undecided who to go for, try to aim for the enemy team carry.
   
3. If the enemy carry is heavily protected and you cannot kill them fast, aim for the character that offers the most protection to the carry instead.
   
4. Try to kill the first enemy as fast as you can to cut off their chakra supply.
   
5. Protect your carry if they run into troubles.
   
6. Don't let your carry die fast unless it's hopeless to save them. Trading your carry for the enemy carry may or may not be a good trade.. It's always good to have enough damage later on. Weigh accordingly
   
7. If you do not have damage besides your carry, keeping your carry alive as long as you can is extremely important early in the game. Having not enough damage early in the game means you will have a hard time killing the other enemies.
   

(3) - Mid Game Decisions

The sign that it's already in the Mid game is when you can see who is most likely going to win or lose, and after the first kill. Thought Process in the Mid Game is very simple yet very crucial.

1. Assume it's going to become a 1v1 game. Imagine who in your team is the best one left alive.
   
2. Try to set-up the 1v1 by keeping your strong character alive and keeping the weakest enemy character alive.
   
3. After you kill the first enemy character, try to think first about "Who will be the worst character alive for the enemy team?" then kill that target .
   
4. Try to kill the first enemy as fast as you can to cut off their chakra supply.
   
5. Set-up the ideal End Game and prevent stalemates for happening. Kill the character that can safely stall or characters you can never kill 1v1.
   

(5) - End Game Decisions

The sign that it's already in the End game is when checkmate can be called. This is where invisible skills come in handy to threaten and throw enemies off. Thought Process in the End Game is focused entirely on impossibilities and creating that win condition you need while preventing your opponent’s.

1. At this point, a mistake can cost the whole game, especially in close games.
   
2. A lot of the times it does involve 1v2 or 2v1 or low health 2v2. At this point, there are no carries alive. If there is a carry alive at this point, that player has a big advantage.
   
3. Create your win condition. The first question I think of is always “Can I stall this safely?” And “Can the enemy stall this safely?” These questions are essential to winning. Because if you and your enemy can safely stall, you might end up with a Stalemate - the WORST outcome in the game. This is worse than losing 10 games in a row. Avoid a stalemate from happening at all costs.
   
4. Towards the end of the game, it might be hard keeping track of the opponent’s chakra costs for beginners. So COUNT THE COOLDOWNS. I cannot stress this enough. At all times, you should be counting chakra and cooldowns but in the End game, THIS IS A MUST. Punish enemies for mistakes. In a losing game, try to not waste your skills with long cooldowns unless it’s necessary.
   

Reserved

You can now post.

This is a great idea! Very informative, and is alot of help especially for the newer or returning players. This game is different from the old one like you said! Glad to see this kinda thing and can't wait for more ^_^

I wish I had a guide like this when I first started clicking boxes hahaha. This will help the new players learn the game a lot faster and they will be able to have a more fun experience playing because they will understand the strategy more clearly.

Thanks Laphy!