Beginner's Guide



It is assumed that those reading this guide have at least cleared the tutorial for Tales of Link including the various explanations on aspects of the game, so at least a general understanding of the game's mechanics are required to read this guide.

Beginner Trials
Fulfilling the Beginner Trials are the first step into understanding the Tales of Link user interface and its community. By fulfilling the various conditions, like adding friends, favoriting heroes, finishing a mission, ranking up, and so on, the once intimidating UI becomes a little more familiar.

Beginner Summon
The Beginner Summon, as its name implies, is a friendly summon that helps new players enhance their teams for a relatively cheap cost of 30 Hero Stones. Standard 10x roll bundles in Summons costs 50 stones. The Beginner Summon also guarantees at least one 5-star unit, many of which can act as viable team leaders like Luke, Reala, Richard, and Yuri.

If the beginner summon result was not desireable, please refer to the rerolling guide.

Quests
Quests are the best way to start accruing various rewards and getting started in Tales of Link. Unlike events, every quest cleared will grant a hero stone and possibly other rewards. This is the best way to amass stones as a beginner, and may possibly lead to a good hero from other summons. Be warned though that once quests have been completed, a continuation of the quest storyline may not be available for some time.

Events
Events are time-limited stages that every beginner should do their best to take advantage of. Events can range from a variety of different types, but almost all of them offer valuable things to players of any level. Many events are also scaled for beginners so a newcomer to the game can tackle them to receive great rewards to strengthen their party or to gain hero stones.

Hero Stones
Hero Stones, as their name implies are best used in the pursuit of newer and stronger heroes. This can include Summons or for achieving a higher ranking in events known as Soul Arena.

Stamina
Stamina is, in most cases, best used to complete events before attempting to clear Quests. Events, with the exception of beginner events, are time-limited and should be completed as soon as possible. Events can offer a variety of things such as gear, heroes, hero stones, etc.

Another useful tip when at low ranks/levels is to attempt to achieve as much as possible before leveling up, and then when stamina is low, doing any type of event or quest that gives enough EXP to rank up. Because of how easy this is to achieve at low ranks, this potentially allows near limitless playtime if done correctly. More information can be found regarding rank and stamina in the guide.

Heroes
Strengthening heroes and finding a team that works well together is a must if players wish to realize their maximum potential. Make sure to maximize levels of heroes and build a team that meshes well together and the leader skill. However, do not be hasty to limit break stronger heroes! Elements can be quite important in Tales of Link. Keeping a ready supply of heroes with different hidden elements can be more useful than just having one slightly stronger hero. A hero's hidden element can be viewed in the Party menu next to their rarity.

Gear
Gear, like heroes, can be leveled up and made stronger by fusion. Just like heroes, gear can be limit broken by fusing a copy into itself. As long as the equip shares the same base (i.e. Chaltier, Chaltier+, and Chaltier++), they can be fused together to limit break the base gear. Gear with + or ++ after its name are upgraded versions of their base gears. Most gear can be upgraded by evolution and some even change their names when evolved! As with heroes, it is usually good practice to have a few different elemental weapons ready to equip before fusing them together to limit break!

To evolve most of the gear in game, players will need to acquire evolution materials. They can usually be found by doing the Weapon stages in the Key category of events.

Special spheres can be used to level up gear much faster and are the best way to level up gear especially at low levels. Remember that leveling up gear costs more the higher the gear's level is. Using spheres achieves max level much faster and for less gald!

Elements
Much like in many other RPGs, Tales of Link's element system allows players to strategically form teams to defeat enemies even before the battle begins. Heroes with hidden elements that are advantageous to the enemy gain a 1.5x multiplier to all damage against the enemy. Heroes can also be equipped with a weapon of an advantageous element for an additional 1.5x multiplier resulting in damage being multiplied by 2.25x! Note that this bonus only applies once though. Don't waste potential by immediately equipping two elemental weapons. Always try to maximize ATK while keeping one advantageous element!

On top of this, damage taken from a disadvantaged enemy, for example a wind enemy attacking an earth hero will result in 25% reduced damage! Keep in mind though that enemies share the same property. Think about elements before heading into battle!

Guardians
Guardians are something akin to subparty members that help the team from the sidelines. Hidden elements do not "activate" unless a guardian with a corresponding element is equipped. That means if a hero, for example Milla, has the hidden element of fire, the only way for that element to be "active" is to have a guardian that is also fire element.

It is highly recommended to equip guardians that complement the strongest heroes in a party. A simple scenario would be that 5/9 of the party are wind type heroes. In this case, equip a guardian that increases wind type heroes' ATK so that the team's overall damage increases. A defense guardian that will reduce the damage from enemies is also recommended. If an enemy is wind, try to equip an earth defense guardian since it will "reduce wind damage by X%." Support guardians can vary from situation to situation so deciding a support guardian may sometimes require a bit more thought.

Artes
Similar to artes in some of the mothership Tales Of games, artes in Tales of Link will activate more often if used in succession. The maximum base chance of activation is 25%, but this can be increased further through passives like Arte Plus.

Two extremely important types of artes players should look for are delay artes and damage healing (vamp) artes. Two early examples easily accessible at all times within summons are [Craymel Mage] Keele and [Blademagic Master] Kratos respectively. Delay artes will push back an enemy's attack by 1 turn. This can be very useful in preparing for a tile-specific attack or simply to gain more turns and LC. Vamp artes (also known as arte healers) are paramount to survival in harder content. Because the RCV stat has been noticeably reduced in comparison to Japan's version in Global, arte healers have become a popular staple for any team.

Although not exactly the same category Mystic Artes which can be obtained from Soul Arenas are a must have in order to become stronger. Players are not required to obtain all of them, but having at least one at full UR++ potential will help greatly in future content.

Soul Arena
Soul Arena begins every 3 weeks and lasts 8 days. That means there is only a 2 week interval between each Soul Arena. Soul Arena offers some of the most condensed and best rewards out of any event. Each Soul Arena offers 28 hero stones and an abundance of different items such as gear, mystic artes, LP, Hero Points, and herbs. Competing in Soul Arena requires a player to clear stages multiple times to gain as much mana as possible. To gain the UR Mystic Arte (which multiplies that particular hero's ATK by 400% when they finish a full 9-chain or OLA) players must gain 600,000 mana in a Soul Arena. For newer players, this may be slightly out of reach, but it is highly recommended to obtain as many rewards as possible. These rewards can be used to strengthen a party and prepare better for the next arena!

To gain the Goddess's upgrade items to evolve a Mystic Arte, players must rank within a certain tier. Getting an UR++ Mystic Arte usually requires being within the top 500 leaders. If top 500 is unachievable, players can still get a Goddess's Love for being within the top 1000. The competition is less fierce, but this will require completing 2 arenas before upgrading an UR Mystic Arte to UR++ this way.

'''Please note that tier numbers are split if there are more than one Soul Arena available at once. This means tier 1 is top 250 if there are two Soul Arenas and so on.'''

Ares Realm
Ares Realm is a successive "dungeon" like event where players must complete 30 stages to receive a "Crystal" that summons a 6-star hero. For beginners, clearing this event entirely will be nigh on impossible, but climbing as far as possible is still highly recommended as the event offers myriad rewards like hero stones, herbs, guardian summon tickets, heroes, and so on. Ares Realm also contains content of varying difficulty which is a good way for beginners to get used to different strategies and improving their team to tackle harder content.

Equipment Events
Equipment events can vary from forging to simply finishing a slew of skits. Some powerful gear can be obtained from finishing certain events which are rewarded at the end. Other events require that players evolve a low rarity item using the other items gained throughout the quest. These are among the easiest and best way to gain very powerful equipment.

Forging events function much differently from most equipment events. Players will be required to "farm" various materials from different quests so that they can upgrade the base "essence" from N rarity all the way to SR++ rarity. This process can be tedious and require a lot of stamina. These events, however, offer some of the best weapons in the game and any new player should try gaining at least one of these powerful weapons to enhance their team's strength.