The free-to-play game Tower of Fantasy released globally this month, an open-world, Gacha, MMORPG game for both PC and mobile devices. The massive world has a lot to offer, but there are quite a few systems and mechanics to familiarize yourself with, which can be a little overwhelming. In this Tower of Fantasy Getting Started Guide we’ll give you everything you should know to get off on the right foot.

Tower of Fantasy Getting Started Guide

Let’s start with what to expect from Tower of Fantasy, before going into the vast world of Aida. Your journey in this game is mostly solo, in a shared open world, with world bosses that add an MMO element. So Tower of Fantasy is more of an online RPG than an MMORPG at least in the beginning. That’s emphasized by the lack of trading systems between players, and how player progress is independent of other players.

The combat system lets you form a team of three characters, you can switch on the fly and combo between their abilities. The twist here is that characters are actually weapons, with separate abilities, animation, and progression. In a Gacha game, you acquire these weapons from wishing or Special Orders as it’s known in Tower of Fantasy, with a random chance to get them. It’s similar to Genshin Impact in a way, but it has various unique mechanics and systems that set it apart. For instance, each weapon comes with a cosmetic character attached, and you can choose between your custom character or these characters’ skins. But we can pick whatever is aesthetically pleasing using Simulacra, as they barely have any effect on gameplay. I’m using both terms “weapons” and “characters” in this guide in an interchangeable way.

Which Platform?

As a cross-platform game, Tower of Fantasy is full of mobile systems, such as different currencies for various shops. There’s also a stamina system, that imposes a limit on the number of certain activities you can do per day. But does that implore you to play on mobile?

Aside from the high-end graphics that Tower of Fantasy offers to PC players, the combat and control scheme is not so friendly to touch screens. Using keyboard and mouse is a definitive upgrade over a touch screen, especially with characters who use bow-type weapons. However, I personally prefer using a controller for the fluid hack and slash feeling of combat, and the complicated combos the game offers.

Which Server?

Tower of Fantasy offers servers in five regions, NA, AP, SA, SEA and EU. You have to be careful when choosing a region, to ensure you play with the lowest ping possible, for smooth gameplay. If you want to play with a group of friends, or join a certain guild, you have to pay attention to which server you join. Each region launched with twenty-something servers each.

While server transfer is possible in Tower of Fantasy, it costs premium currency, which costs real money. So you should plan accordingly on which server to join, if you want the Multiplayer experience with friends.

Reroll Your Account or Not?

The question of rerolling is always a prominent one for every new gacha game. The chance-based method of acquiring characters, or weapons in Tower of Fantasy’s case – might yield undesirable outcomes for players. Players have a limited chance to get a top-rank weapon at the start of their playthrough. If they get an undesirable weapon or one they don’t plan to use, they may choose to create a new account and try their luck again.

Tower of Fantasy doesn’t prohibit players from rolling as many accounts as they wish, until they get the weapons they aim for. However, re-rolling is not really necessary in Tower of Fantasy as the game celebrates the global launch by giving away a weapon selector ticket of highest rank to every player. So regardless of the weapons you will get from gacha chances, you can select your favorite weapon from the ticket.

That, on top of the generous number of wishes a new player will get from just playing the game. These reduce the value of rerolling a lot, but it’s still an option for die-hard fans of certain characters. It’s also an option for those who want to min-max their account from day one.

Character Creation

You can customize your character in Tower of Fantasy to your heart’s content. The main character you create is purely cosmetic and has no effect on gameplay. Not even obvious changes such as character height affect sprinting speed, swimming speed, nor hit box. That gives players complete freedom to create the anime character they desire, without restrictions.

Tower of Fantasy offers a dynamic and effective way to create many characters preset, and save them. Not only that, but you can also share characters presets, so other players can import and enjoy them. The system offers a lobby, with various ways to browse through presets created by other players. You can look at latest presets, most popular presets, and you can mark them as favorite to return to them later. It’s a system that garnered players liking, with over 150k presets created in less than 24 hours after pre-load became available on PC and Android devices. This number went up to 500k on first day of release. People also create presets of popular characters from other anime, games, and TV shows, so the lobby is full of good surprises.

Finally, don’t fret too much about creating the absolute perfect character down to every detail on day one. You can revisit the character creator and change your character appearance later, using some in-game currency.

Quick tips in Character Creator

I’ll not go in-depth about character creation, but I’ll only highlight some important tips:

• You can customize every aspect of your character, including colors of separate parts of outfit.
• Hair customization is extensive; you can change hair style and color on the front, middle and back.
• If you find parts of hair customization locked, try changing outfits. The game locks certain hairstyles from being used with a certain outfit to prevent too much hair clipping (hair going through clothes in an unrealistic manner).
• There are more customization options than you see, in hairstyles, eyebrows, eye shapes, eye balls, and enchanted eyes. Always try dragging the options to show more. Do this on touch screens, or by holding the left mouse button and dragging on the PC (mouse scroll wheel might not work).
• If the colors in the color wheel don’t satisfy, there’s a greyed-out “Custom” button to bring up a more detailed palette.

Your First Few Hours

So you are set. You have chosen your region, your server, and created your character. You set foot in Aida for the first time, and you wonder what you should do, and where you should go. I’ll give you a general guideline.

Follow The Main Story Quest

It might be an obvious tip, but Tower of Fantasy is a stunning game, with a full living world filled with mysteries waiting to be uncovered. The game always implores you to explore, and you can easily lose your way in the vast world. Some exploration is good, but there’s an important reason why you should prioritize following the main story quest.

As surprising as it may sound, Tower of Fantasy’s main story is actually time-gated. At a point in the quest, it will outright stop you from progressing further in the story, and tell you to wait six hours, or 12 hours before the next quest unlocks. It’s better to hit this time gate early, so the timer starts ticking while you busy yourself exploring and doing daily events.

If you’re someone with limited time to play daily, you might not notice this mechanic at all. It’s designed for fully dedicated players who spend most of their time immersing themselves in the game. This way, they don’t progress so much beyond other players and do not cause a huge gap between the community in a very short amount of time.

Another important reason why you should go through the main quest first is the locked features in the game. Tower of Fantasy doesn’t unlock every new menu and feature at the beginning of the game. Instead, they spread them over the length of the main quest and level progression.

The game has so many activities you will not be aware they exist before unlocking them. Once you reach the appropriate level or complete the required quest, you will find new stuff added to the UI. So keep your eyes on the main quest, and don’t be tempted to stray so much early on.

Don’t Use Your SSR Weapon Selection Ticket

Tower of Fantasy celebrated its global release, and reached a four million player pre-register milestone by giving away very generous rewards. Among this overwhelming list of rewards, the SSR weapon selector is the most crucial item. It not only gives a free weapon of the highest rank, but it gives a guaranteed weapon of your choice in a Gacha game, where almost everything you get is random. A guaranteed weapon selector becomes the most precious item in your arsenal. That’s especially true if you are a free-to-play player.

The trick here is to hold on to the selector until you get all your free wishes from playing the game. Use all your wishes on appropriate banners, and see what weapons you get, especially the SSR ones. You might be lucky and get the character/weapon you desire from free wishes so that you can select another character from the ticket later on.

Whether you reroll your account or not, it’s important to see what weapons your account has first. This way, you can decide what final weapon from the ticket you can pick to complement existing weapons in your first build. Selecting the right weapon from the selector ticket is a very extensive topic, and deserves its full guide. So keep an eye out for it, and follow us not to miss our guides when it’s released.

Finish All Your Daily Missions and Start Clearing Weekly Ones

This is such an important thing to do before going all out on full exploration of Aida. Weekly missions grant activity points, that you can redeem for very useful rewards. They don’t take long to finish, and some get done by merely going from place to place around the map and opening chests in your way. Some on the other hand are much more challenging, such as killing world bosses. However, they will get you to learn a lot about the game’s mechanics, your character’s strengths and weaknesses, and let you experience the multiplayer aspect of the game.

Daily bounties give you a target to kill, whether it be a mini-boss, or a group of smaller enemies. It’s very easy if you have a decent build, and rewards you with more currencies for summons. These will renew every day, so you should prioritize them overworld exploration. As most open-world rewards are one-time only, and you can get them anytime.

If daily and weekly missions are not open for you yet, keep progressing the main quest and leveling up until you get them open.

Wait 14 Days Before Buying Clotho Supply Pod

After going further through the main mission, and hitting the right level, you will unlock the Rewards menu. You will first get through the straightforward stuff, like daily login rewards, level pack rewards, battle pass rewards. There’s also the newcomer event, with small tasks you finish to claim points, and eventually get an SSR selector. But further ahead, you will unlock another tab with the name “Clotho Supply Pod” which basically sells you 10 wishes or Special Orders on a standard banner, at a discounted price.

If it’s discounted, then why you shouldn’t buy it? Reason being, it will actually keep gaining a higher discount over time. After fourteen days, it will become entirely free, and you can save your currency for buying the limited banner wishes instead. So be patient, and don’t rush buying it, you will get it for free eventually.

Weapons & Combat Basics

When it comes to combat, Tower of Fantasy plays akin to an ARPG more than MMORPG in my opinion. You can equip three weapons at once, and you can switch between them on the fly. Players are encouraged to combo between weapons, with each weapon having its moves categorized into four types of skills.

Skill Types

General Attack: All of the standard attack combos, which are spammable with no cooldown.

Dodge Skill: Upon dodging, you trigger certain effects. And upon perfectly timed evasion, you trigger “Phantom Time”, which slows time, fills weapon energy, and enables combination skills.

Main Skill: A unique skill each weapon posses, which is tied to their element. It’s the defining factor between weapons of the same category.

Discharge Skill: Skills that activate by switching weapons, and combining their combos. It requires the discharge meter, or the “Weapon’s Omnium” as the game calls it. This builds over time, or you can quickly charge it by a perfect dodge.

Elemental Types & Weapon Charge

There are four elements in the game, and each weapon comes inherently with one of the four. Elements are Flame   , Ice, Volt (Lightning) , and Grievous (Physical) . Most enemies come with different resistances to different elements, with at least one weakness. Sometimes certain content comes with overall high resistance to a certain element, to give an extra challenge for specific teams. It encourages players to build teams (weapon sets) with more than one element, to counter various content.

Elements are also required for certain open-world exploration and puzzles. With some Premium currency rewards – which you can use to summon/wish for weapons – locked behind Flame puzzles. That makes Flame type a must in all open-world teams.

Each element has certain effects after filling its charge meter. This effect is different from Discharge Attack, which triggers upon switching weapon:

• Flame: After the weapon is fully charged, the next attack ignites the enemy for 8s, dealing 58% attack damage per second and reducing the target’s healing effect by 50% during ignition
• Ice: After the weapon is fully charged, the next attack causes 2s of freezing effect on the enemy and 6s of frostbite effect, when the freeze breaks it deals 151% attack damage, the target’s frostbite acquisition speed is reduced by 50%.
• Volt: After the weapon is fully charged, the next attack will cause a strong paralyzing effect on the enemy for 1s and will cause electricity for 6s, remove the target’s gain effect, and deal 144% attack damage. The target will not able to gain the gain effect for 6s.
• Grievous: After the weapon is fully charged, the next attack will cause the enemy to enter the Critical Wound state for 7s, increasing the damage taken by 20% and dealing 137% attack damage.

Shield Breaking

Enemy shields have two types, non-attribute shields, which take similar damage from all elements. Elemental shields are more resistant to attacks of the same element. If you encounter a shield with a certain element, you have to switch to another element to break it effectively.

In all cases, weapons have a shield-breaking stat that goes by the name of “Shatter”. The game gives it a rating system with a grade, B, A, S .. etc, and shows the weapon’s shatter strength in numbers as well. So players can easily compare between weapon’s Shatter ability, to add one with high Shatter to their team.

Weapon Roles & Weapon Resonance

As I explained before, weapons in Tower of fantasy are basically the characters. So what we call “character classes” in other games, is part of the weapons in Tower of Fantasy. They are called “Weapon Roles”, and there are three of them, DPS   , Defense , and Support . They represent the classic class trinity from MMORPGs, so they are straightforward.

A weapon set may include three weapons, and the combination of the roles of these weapons will give “Weapon Resonance”. It’s a buff relating to the core stat of any roles you add twice or more within the same set. If you don’t repeat any role and use all three within the same set, you get a balanced buff. Balanced buff increase stats for every role, but at small amounts.

Balance

• Damage dealt +5%, damage taken -5%
• Shatter and healing +20%
  ・Team Play only: Damage dealt +20% extra, damage taken -20% extra

Fortitude

• Damage taken -25%
• Shatter +60%
• Aggro +800%
  ・Team Play only: Damage taken -20% extra

Attack

• Damage dealt +10%
  ・Team Play only: Damage dealt +40% extra

Benediction

• Healing +100%
  ・Team Play only: Healing +100% extra

Leveling Up and Gearing

Resources in the game take time to farm, and doesn’t afford leveling every weapon you have in your hands. That’s why you should make strategic decision on what weapons you main, and focus on them. Here’s some basic tips to fully utilize your resources wisely.

Don’t level low rank (R) weapons

As general guidance, don’t invest in these weapons. You might level one or two to level 10 or even 20 at the very first 30 minutes in game, but don’t go any further. Higher rank (SR) and (SSR) weapons outclass any (R) in every aspect.

First of all, higher Rank weapons have Constellations, which are additional buffs and effects that unlock by feeding copies of the weapon to upgrade. An (SR) or (SSR) weapon can unlock up to six stars (Constellations). In addition to that, they have higher base stats, and better growth per level.

Some low rank weapons are useful early on, such as Composite Bow, which has a Flame element. Using a Flame weapon is important in exploration, to solve some fire puzzles, and gain premium currency. You will use this weapon as long as you don’t have any other Flame weapon. However, it wouldn’t really take long before you get your hands on better ones that replace Composite Bow. So high investment in low rank weapons is inefficient.

Learning About Good SR Weapons

Getting to the middle rank (SR), you get a mixed bag, with some good and some bad choices. Knowing which (SR) weapon is worth playing, is a long-term investment, and only serves a short-term goal is important. They generally fall into these categories:

Competitive in Endgame (Level at will)

• Staff of  Scars (Pepper)
• Pummeler (Ene)

Decent Until You get Better Replacement (Level to 40 or 50)

• Nightingale’s feather (Bai Ling)

Hard to Utilize (Not worth investing)

• Thunderous halberd (Echo)
• The terminator (Hilda)

Level at Least Two of Your SSR Main Weapons

In a typical run in Tower of Fantasy, you will get at least three SSR weapons within a few days. One from the 30 Special Orders mark, one from reaching 80 draws (pity), and one from the SSR weapon selector. The SSR weapon selector reward is given to any player who has registered their account pre-launch, or within the first six months after the game’s launch.

Three weapons of the highest rank guarantees a good start, but if you want to min-max your account and going strong, you want to prioritize your DPS weapon, then shield-breaking weapons. For instance, having two weapons at level 80 is better than having five weapons at level 50.

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That wraps up our getting started guide for Tower of Fantasy. Be sure to stay tuned for more Tower of Fantasy Guides throughout August as we will be putting together some Build Guides, and Game Systems Guides.