Hi! I started Houkai 3rd during the 1st or 2nd week of its Global release. Houkai 3rd is one of the better mobile games out there that feature weekly content update, smooth gameplay, nice graphics (waifu fo laifu!) and doesn't require heavy grinding. Overall, very F2P-friendly (I'm coming from Pokemon Shuffle so I have a pretty high standard for a F2P game).
To explain the title, I'm not 100% F2P (hence, F2P-ish) since I subscribe to the 60-crystal-daily package. That amount is nothing compared to the whales and doesn't really help you much with the gacha way of this game, so it's mostly to support MiHoYo for such a good game. It's completely feasible you progress in this game decently without spending any money. Casual-ish is because I spend about 2 hours per day for this game (3 in the weekend). I think that's more than a lot of other mobile games which you can just pop out on the bus / train. However, I believe the more time you invest in the beginning, the less you'll need to do to stay in the game later on.
I'm gonna assume you guys have progressed through the early part of the game. If you're reaching level 20 and upward, this guide might be for you.
In this guide I'll talk about my daily routines, then about the Abyss, a bit about Samsara and the current gacha system. This guide is compiled based mostly on my experience so if there's something wrong, please go ahead and comment below.
- VR: Valkyrie Ranger
- VC: Valkyrie Chariot
- DP: Divine Prayer
- YA: Yamabuki Armor
- SD: Shadow Dash
- Miko: Gyakushinn Miko
- Meme: Gyukushinn Memento
- CI: Crimson Impulse
- Valks: Valkyries
So as you may know already, there're 2 biggest currencies in the game: coin and crystals. Obviously crystals is more important so you'll need to farm them as much as you can, while you'll be unlikely to run out of coins at a normal play rate. Your constant source of crystal is gonna be daily missions. It's completely doable that you reach the highest daily mission award every day, totalling 40 crystals per day. This and Abyss clearing, each month, can earn you enough for 1 guaranteed 4-Star Stigmata drop in Focused Supply (which costs 2800 crystals). On top of that, doing daily missions helps you level up very quickly, which can unlock a lot of content later on like Samsara / Blood Realm event / etc.
Every day I do these:
- Go in Shop > Logistic Terminal. Purchase 1 thing with coins. Don't buy anything here with crystals. My only purchases: Valkyrie Chariot / Crimson Impulse frags and if not, upgrade materials.
- Go into Armada (seriously join one, doesn't have to be a very active one) and contribute 2 commissions.
- Clear EXP event stage.
- Clear Upgrade Materials stage (twice if you can).
- Clear Befallen Honkai.
- Enhance Stigmatas / Weapons 2 times
- Level up Valks with chips (not everyday)
- Level up Valk's skill 2 times (a.k.a Skill Training) (not everyday either)
- Get 60 Stamina (this is at the end of the day)
- Farm YA (to S-rank), DP (to S-rank), VR (to S-rank), SD (to SS-rank), VC (to SS-Rank) with all stamina left. Clear the missions like get help 5 times or clear 4 stages with X
- Exchanging crystals with coins. I only do this if there's nothing left to do and the last daily reward is still unclaimed. Effectively you're gaining 5 crystals out of this + some coins so not too bad. Mainly cuz I don't have the patience to find co-op match 3 times. If you can, you can save 10 crystals per day too! Below is one example I've to do the exchange since there's no more mission to do.
Between that is gonna be Abyss clearing, Samsara and occasional event clearing (like the current Blood Realm). At the end of the day, I send all Valks for expedition missions.
That's about 1 hour of farming frags, 15 minutes of events, 20 minutes of Samsara and 30 minutes of Abyss per day.
Another constant source of crystals is the Abyss, which is in Event mode and opened twice per week (Friday-Sunday and Tuesday-Thursday)
Abyss is kinda an escalation battle where you try to get to the stop and stay there. If you manage to stay at the top positions, you'll be promoted to the next tier abyss. Staying in the middle will keep you there and being at the bottom will demote you to the lower tier abyss. At Agony Abyss (or the 5th level from the left), just keeping yourself there earns you 160 crystals. I'd say the goal is Red Lotus since Myriad is too much (check for yourself, everyone is at 33rd just to be retained). Abyss is hard because you get damaged non-stop every second there, which is insignificant at first but at higher abyss, your main Valks can die within just a minute standing. So either you clear the stages fast (which gives you heal and SP) or you have good sustainability to stay and fight.
From my experience, at lower level (until Sinful), you can go without any healing Valk. As time goes on, you'll stand no chance against the bosses without a healer (at the moment I'm at Agony Abyss). My team has been changing in this order since the start:
- VR + CI + VC (quite low-level abyss, from level 25-ish)
- VR + Miko + VC (when Miko event came, struggling with Sinful Abyss, from lvl45-ish)
- YA + Miko + VR / VC when bossing (throughout Sinful, struggling to beat boss)
- YA + Miko + DP (quite recently, this got me through Sinful, still using now)
The idea is to have a attractor then switch into damage dealers to clean them up. VR and VC are both good at this, though VR is slightly better since she doesn't need any SP to do so and can deal damage herself with her Ultimate. Generally, QTE is the way to deal damage in Abyss since its bursty and AoE nature allows you to finish the stage faster (thus prevents bleeding). However, my current team doesn't have a reliable attractor / strong QTE since I appreciate survivability more. Still, if you want to climb higher quickly, having a crowd control + strong QTE is definitely the way to go.
The general combo at lower level was VR dodging (gather mobs) -> stun with Colt Peacemaker -> VC's QTE (cause floating) -> CI's QTE -> Crystal Edge freeze-> VR's QTE again. This is quite a decent combo and fun to watch but quickly gets outdated at higher tier abyss. Now it's mainly DP dodging (cause floating) -> Miko (I only QTE into YA when I need healing) or YA shield explodes (paralyzed) -> DP.
Experiment with your Valks for a good QTE combination!
Once you know yourself, it's good to know the opponent too! There're maximum 33 stages in 1 tier of Abyss, with boss stages at:
- 10F: Ganesha
- 20F: Dark Bronya
- 30F: Wendy
- 33F: Wendy + Ganesha
You can practise versus Ganesha at 1-18, Dark Bronya at 2-20 and Wendy at 3-18. Try the Hard version too so you can farm frags at the same time.
- Walk up and slam itself down. Predictable and you can hit dodge as its body falls down.
- Charging a bit then roar / shoot beam from mouth. Should take about 3s to charge, but if you want to be safe, get out of the pink radius. This attack knocks back and hurts.
- Curling up and roll around, seeking you. This one really hurts but it gives you time to dodge since it rolls quite slowly. Avoid this at all cost though.
- Curling up and roll straight ahead very fast. When fighting vs Ganesha, when it starts curling, DO NOT get yourself stuck at the corner. This roll moves extremely fast and you'd better go near it to avoid than stand afar.
Since it doesn't have many invulnerable period, you can go Vitality Potion with damage dealing ultimate and spam it to death. Although, if you have to use it now just to get past it, you're not ready for 20F (personal experience).
- Throw grenade. She'd throw a bunch of grenade towards, you can hit dodge around 0.5s after the grenade hits the ground. If she does this, the next attack will be:
- Shoot laser. Charging a bit then shoot a bunch of laser beam forward. It hits fast and hard. Being hit twice is probably you failing the stage (when you meet her the 1st time). Hit dodge once her charging retracts nearly fully.
- Smokescreen. This one doesn't deal damage but it nullifies range attacks. It's often immediately followed by the 1st / 2nd pattern. Move closer to hit her.
- Dimension Punch. She vanishes into the dark and once every few seconds, comes down and punch you to death. Hit dodge when you see the pink circle appears down. There's an alternative of this, which takes 1s longer for her to hit. Observe carefully how high she is from the ground. Hit dodge 1s later if she's much higher up.
- Laser field. Unlimited Bladeworks. Follows the 4th pattern. You DO NOT get hit by this. Miko has a very useful skill to instantly close the gap. If you cannot move towards her in time (when all circles are summoned), use invulnerable burst to get past this.
- Flashbomb. Quite rare, but observe when she releases a small ball of light up. Stop attack immediately and turn yourself away from the light ball.
Often her battle goes like this. Pattern 1 -> 2 (a few times) with occasionally 4 -> screen goes dark -> 4 all the duration of dark screen -> teleport twice (you should start moving towards her once the screen gets bright and she teleports 1st time) -> 5 -> 3 -> 1 -> 2 / 6 -> 2 -> 4--> teleport twice --> 5 -> repeat. Constantly avoid her attacks and break her shield. Once the shield's broken, you've got a dozens seconds to go all out with a damage dealer before she goes pinky pinky and restores her shield. Vitality Potion to get you a head start, but at later stages, you're not likely to pass this without a healer (I couldn't defeat without YA). A test of perseverance.
- Dash close to you then attack. This one is a bit odd. You'll see the purple counter light flashing up but by the time you hit dodge, you're a bit too late. Try to dodge before that.
- Blow a wind toward you. The wind moves straight and is not that fast, plus she's likely to fly away afterwards so this isn't that dangerous. Still, avoid this.
- Summon 2 wind blades then hit you all at once. Hit dodge when the blades rises past her shoulder
- Summon 3 wind blades then hit you one by one. The blade moves not so fast and you'll have some time to react. Don't get hit by the 1st one though since you're very prone to be hit by the rest.
- Summon 3 tornadoes goes outerward slowly. Another easy-to-dodge attack. The tornadoes slowly expand and you can move between them, plus Wendy is fully exposed during the meantime.
- Create a vortex that drags you towards the center then explodes, dealing damage. This hits really hard. You can dash out of the center before it explodes, otherwise you'll have to time it right for an evasion (approx. 1.5s since she drags you).
I couldn't see a fixed pattern, but since her attacks are not that hard to dodge, it's again a test of sustainability. Just don't get hit though, the attacks are simpler but deadlier.
Okay I haven't beaten this couple past Sinful Abyss. My strat is to go for Ganesha first, but I suppose you'll need good team formation & equipment to sustain here. And you need to dodge A LOT.
Samsara is a pretty new content for me so I've got little to talk about. It's opened every Monday, Thursday & Saturday. My routine every time it opens has been:
- Pick all 5 missions (you can refresh up to 7 times without spending anything). Prioritize frags.
- Eat stuff to power up Valks for faster clearing.
- Make a full trip through the map, pick up everything, backstab every enemy (Higokumaru needs at least the stealth strike ability) and clear every mission in 1 go too.
- Get out and benefit.
First off, I understand that spending on Standard supply is not a good idea unless you've got tickets. So after the first 4th pull, stay away from it since all Valks in there except for S-Rank can be farmed.
Then comes the Focused Supply, which is where we're gonna spend crystals. Generally, there's a weekly 'banner' i.e a small event with higher chance to get certain stigmatas / weapons from the Focused Supply. However, not all high-tier stigmata / weapons from this supply (the one guaranteed after 10 pulls without high-tier drop) are good. For this I'd recommend checking Houkai3C's Youtube channel. He has a weekly review on this 'banner' and if the chance of getting good stuff is high (7x% or so), then spend your crystals away!
It's the equipment that makes your Valkyrie stronger, not the Valkyrie alone!
You shouldn't spend any on Refinery.