One of the latest to arrive in full launch version is Shadowblood, which offers up an intriguing mixture of styles: the aesthetic and character designs of a Korean MMO (think Lineage or Black Desert), but with the UI of a western freemium and the gameplay of a full 3D ARPG.
As expected, there’s a ton going on in all that mashing of genres, and the game is a little intimidating to the newbie. Below we cover everything you need to know to jump right in and get playing.
Getting Started in Shadowblood
Choose The Best Class
First up are six options to pick from, with male or female versions of the Berserker, Assassin, and Ranger classes. While the descriptions make it seem like there’s a lot to ponder in your choice, in reality you are essentially just choosing your weapon and combat range – a comically oversized maul, short swords that require up-close melee, or a long range bow.
Agatha the Berserker
There is a clear winner this time around: the Berserker is easily the best class. You can hit tons of enemies at the same time for large amounts of damage with a single swing, and you don’t even have to be close to the enemy while attacking.
Your ability to strike multiple opponents goes down with the other classes due to their decreased strike range. There’s a trade off between Assassin and Ranger – both of which are harder to play, depending on whether you want to be up close or hit from far away.
Eve the Assassin
The assassin can rack up bigger combos and do more damage than Ranger, but you have to get closer. This can make boss fights significantly more difficult, as you have to get directly next to larger enemies and be within range of devastating attacks.
On the other side, the Ranger deals less damage overall, but can do so from across the screen. If you are particularly nimble, Ranger can be the second best option. Otherwise you should go with Assassin.
All three classes start with a rolling/dash/jumping skill meant to quickly approach enemies – but its more likely you should use that skill to flee a large group of mobs with the Ranger.
Bella the Ranger
Customize Your Character
Thankfully, you don’t have to stick with just one class. You can create your first two characters for free, while the third costs 500 gems to unlock.
Here’s the important part to keep in mind: each character has their own gold and energy. This means you can switch between them to keep playing if you’ve run out of energy with a different one, but you have to share a gem pool between all your characters.
After picking a class, your other consideration is where to put skill points at each level up. But there’s less customization here than you’d think, as increases to your active, passive, and special skills unlock at specific levels. Due to these restrictions, most players are essentially going to be taking nearly the same path no matter what.
So how do you stand out? The big difference will be in your equipment, which is randomized based on how well you do on any given level and can also be upgraded by sacrificing other items.
Picking new skills
Work Those Freebies
There are tons of options to earn freebies – daily login rewards, Lucia’s Blessings that count down over a period of in-game minutes, Freya’s Requests for completing tasks like enhancing gear or raiding a specific level, and then Missions for defeating certain numbers of enemies or accomplishing other achievements.
These are your best friends – and as with all the options available during the launch event, its unlikely you’d ever need to spend any money. Using the gold, gems, and upgrade stones from freebies are where you have the ability to distinguish your character from any other and upgrade your equipment.
There’s another way to get really lazy with freebies, though. You need a steady supply of new equipment to imbue the old stuff and acquire upgrades, right? You could play each level over and over manually, but that’s time consuming. If you managed to get a daily or signup reward with a ton of bonus energy (I lucked out with 250 energy first thing), you can set the game to Continuous Play mode.
This mode plays the same level with auto-battle enabled over and over until either your inventory is full or you run out of energy. Just make sure to put on some good skill buffs for any given level and you are unlikely to die – reaping in tons of rewards while there’s still room in your backpack for more loot.
I don’t personally understand the appeal of having the game play itself, but for those wanting to farm lots of equipment and gold while at work or playing something else, here you go. Just don’t forget to actually go into your mailbox and claim your rewards! Anything besides equipment isn’t claimed automatically and must be manually collected.
When you do play manually, be sure to go back and repeat any level where you didn’t get Rank-S. A huge gold bonus is offered for each cumulative Rank-S win, with the pot getting larger the more levels that have maximum rank wins.
Ready to get playing?
That’s all the basics you need to know to get started! What other Shadowblood tips and tricks have you learned since trying out the game that you’d recommend to new players?
