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Yet more blathering about Another Eden
After 11 days, I've finally, finally caught up to where I was before. I covered about a month's worth of progress in 11 days this second run. This is because I basically skipped over all the old dialogue as quickly as possible and didn't bother to click on the NPCs that I knew weren't important and were only there for flavor. Now I'm going to slow down again and just enjoy the story on a character level.
Sure, my gacha luck has been poor — my guaranteed 5-star pull gave me a piercing unit (SS tier) that has ZERO synergy with my current team *cries* — but the collab units have been pulling me through all the content. Including each other's collab content. LOL.
Anyhoo, now that I've caught up and I'm doing a bit more reading, I'd like to talk a little more about general Another Eden progression.
Before I go on, I'm going to recommend a roadmap by u/xPalox, which covers a lot of things that are still relevant. The major thing this doesn't cover is the Chrono Cross collab, as people are still spading the mechanics, so I'll mostly be talking about how Chrono Cross seem to fit into the roadmap during early-to-mid-game. I will also be mostly focusing on how to make a F2P life easier.
In addition, I recommend consulting the English wiki and Japanese wiki for extended guides. The Japanese wiki is more complete, but more difficult to use for the Global audience.
As far as I can tell, the game can be broken into roughly four phases. I will be mostly focusing my attention on the earlier phase, with some comments about later phases based mostly on what I've read on wikis.
Early Game - Before clearing chapter 13 (level: 1-30)
In early game, there aren't a lot of options for F2P. As mentioned before, there are two guaranteed 4-star choices. At the beginning of the game with the tutorial encounter, and again after clearing chapter 10.
Tutorial Encounter: Pick Bivette.
Here's the thing, with the amount of chrono stones (the gacha currency, aka stones) you get, it is highly unlikely that you won't collect all of the 4-star units at some point. This is why your 4-star pick here should focus on utility over end game potential. The truth is, by end game, you'll most probably have either pulled a full gacha team with the free stones, or have ground up all your collab and free in-game units that you won't really be missing whichever 4-star you glossed over for Bivette.
The reason Bivette is useful is two-fold:
In early game, you'll be severely lacking in a status removal skills. In-game units do not carry status removal until Chapter 10. Until then, Bivette will be your only option.
Bivette casts regen. Regen will help keep your team alive as you go through level-appropriate content. Regen will keep you alive during boss-fights, as Riica's heal is going to get easily overwhelmed without assistance from Bivette's regen.
Another minor reason is that Bivette is easier to level up to 5-stars, because her 5-star path is through story completion rather than grinding for tomes in dungeons. However, this becomes slightly less of an advantage due to Chrono Cross collab, seeing as Chrono Cross has characters that can easily replace her, and their 5-star progression is through the reward track, thus also RNG-free.
Healer Encounter: Prai or Krervo
Although Krervo doesn't have the 5-star option that Prai has, Krervo does give status removal through his Valor Chant (VC). So if you bring Krervo in, you get a free turn of status removal, which is one less turn for Poison/Pain to deal damage on your team or Stun/Sleep to disable your attackers. It also means freeing up the turn to heal up damage.
Prai, on the other hand, can deal better damage as a hammer user and can take a hit better than Krervo. He also has further potential for growth. If you have Bivette and manage the mana well, you can get by without Krervo's VC.
Until chapter 13 is cleared, you'll have limited access to in-game characters. If your gacha pull is unlucky, you'll want to make sure you fill the team with the guaranteed encounters.
A note about the gacha: When pulling 10 at a time, you are guaranteed a 4-star character. Sometimes, these are so called "4.5-star", because of their ability to upgrade to 5-stars. The 4.5-star characters are always worth investing, but slashing damage units are going to help the most in early game. The exception being Mariel, who will effectively null your need for Bivette/Prai even in later games. In this case, grab Krervo after chapter 10 so he can swap in with Mariel until you unlock the collabs.
Points of Interest:
Collect 50 stones daily
Gain 20 for logging in
Gain another 20 for watching the login ad
Gain an additional 10 for watching the ad through the store (access via the "+" button next to the stones count on the Menu page)
Grab Bivette at the start of the game
Check your mail to receive your 10-pull gacha ticket and 1000 free stones
Use both the 10-pull ticket and the 1k stones immediately
Pull in 10-pull bundles for the guaranteed 4-stars
Pull on the "Limited" banners instead of the regular ones
Use your stones from achievement awards as much as possible prior to chapter 10 so that you have an understanding of which 4-star healers you have in your collection before you have to make a choice
Do all the sidequests for experience scrolls
After clearing chapter 10, go to the "Regular" gacha banner to unlock your guaranteed 4-star healer
Pick Prai if you don't have him yet
Pick Krervo/Erina if you've already pulled a Prai (although it shouldn't matter too much at this point because you're 3 chapters from unlocking collabs)
If you do not have a 4-star healer already, use scrolls to level up your new 4-star healer so they may be ready for chapter 13 boss
Aim for at least level 30 on everyone before heading into chapter 13
Finish the level 10 character quests to upgrade VCs
Mid Game - Post-Chapter 13 to Chapter 25 (level: 30-60)
After clearing chapter 13, tons of content open up. Collabs, side-stories, multiple dungeons, cat collection, Records Room.
First, the Records Room. This is located in the Spacetime Rift (which you should unlock by clearing chapter 10). You'll be able to access any previous dungeons that aren't permanently open on the map. The first of such being Miglance Castle. Miglance Castle mobs drop items needed for the next level of crafting, so it behooves you to go back through the Records Room and farm up some items for crafting and get your team geared up and ready for the collab challenges.
Second, Collabs. You'll want to open these even if you can't fully complete them. As I've mentioned before, the order of opening the collabs should be Persona 5 → Tales → Chrono Cross → Persona 5 #2.
Complete as much of the collab as possible and then switch to the next collab when you find your team not able to handle the mobs anymore. Keep rotating until you complete all of them.
Persona 5 goals:
Fabricated armor (brace, necklace, ring), as they give regen and are the best for their level
Grab Morgana and Joker's level 60 weapons
Joker's can be grabbed through a quick sidequest (check wiki for spoilers)
Morgana's can be grabbed from a chest right before the final boss
Tales of... goals:
Unlock all four 4-star characters
Complete cooking quest by hunting down horrors (non-story bosses)
Get one of each cooking item (weapons and armor) to complete collection
Upgrade at least Yuri and Milla to 5-stars (leave Cress and Velvet for late game)
Chrono Cross goals:
Unlock all three 4-star characters (run through the story twice)
Gather as many Scarlet Meteorites as you can through new game+ runs (follow wiki guide)
Grab all the gold, high class scrolls, prayer scripts, murmur scripts, and other key items (check Japanese wiki map guides) during new game+
Use the skip function judiciously: menu → records → symphony → Chrono Cross: Complex Dream → skip button
When playing as the cat in the prologue, you can exit with the menu button and gain access to the skip function
Open chests in Dreamslip Tower of Time until you have Recharge, Purify, Holy Wind, Thunda Storm, Black Hole, and Meteor (last three mostly for Harle)
Grind collab dungeon in Spacetime Rift
Collect one of each Prismatic Weapon/Armor for collection and usefulness (a prismatic weapon + armor guarantees 100% unconditional crit and doubles Joker's VC damage)
Persona 5 #2:
Complete story mode for Violet
Complete secret missions in the collab dungeon to obtain Skull (can delay this to late game)
Obtain Violet's level 60 weapon (can delay this to late game)
DO NOT attempt the Twins; they are a super-boss meant for end-game content
Third, there's the cat collection. There are tons of cats sprinkled through the non-dungeon maps in the game. Grab them for your collection as you will need them for cat battles later on. Once they've been registered, you can choose to have them follow you by finding them on the map and clicking the pawprint speech bubble.
Fourth, side-stories now open up more in-game characters to collect. A lot of these will be 4-stars. Some have 5-star potential. All require grinding a reward's track, although the point gates have been lowered in the newest version.
The ones to open immediately are Two Knights, IDA school, Ocean Palace, and Lost Tome & Silver Flower. It's recommended to rotate through these stories' chapters as their difficulty slowly grows with time.
Two Knights: Starting difficulty level 28. Completion level ~30.
Final fight only allows use of Aldo and Deirdre, make sure they're both around level 30 so you don't die
Get Deirdre at 4-stars for story completion
- Deirdre can upgrade to 5-stars with a later side-story
Grind progress track to at least 50k to get Aldo's 4-star tome
- I recommend hunting horrors daily rather than running dungeons, as horror hunting gives 6k+ with Deirdre in the party
Ocean Palace #1: Starting difficulty level 33. Completion level ~55.
Open the quest even if underleveled to unlock fishing
Follow the wiki guide to fishing as at the end it will net you a 5-star water mage
Use fishing to break up the monotony of reward track farming
Go back to the turtle boss fight after all characters have reached level 33
Get Sheila at 4-stars at the end of of the story
- Sheila can upgrade to 5-stars with a later side-story
Grind progression track to at least 110k to get Cyrus' 4-star tome
- Grind Very Hard dungeon for 50 Black Pearls for a level 52 lance
IDA School #1: Starting difficulty level 30. Completion level ~45.
This is the first part in a 3-part series
The Heartscraps sidequest is painful and the rewards are meh, do not recommend doing unless going for achievement
Get Jade at 4-stars at the end of story
Jade can upgrade to 5-stars at a later stage of the IDA School side-story chain
Must complete Lost Tome & Silver Flower for Jade's 5-star tome
Grind progression track to at least 25k for Riica's 4-star tome
Put Jade in the party and horror hunt for ~1.2k points per horror
To return to Saki's Dream dungeon after clearing the chapter, go to the IDEA HQ and talk to the girl with ❕ over her head
Lost Tome & Silver Flower: Starting difficulty level 30. Completion level ~55-60.
Do seeker side quests as often as you can
Seeker points will be used to gate progression
Keep Sophia in the party to get bonus seeker points during quest completion
Periodically check Auction House and bid for unique weapons
Story completion will also gate completion
Chapter 2 unlocks after Main Story chapter 20
Chapter 3 unlocks after Main Story chapter 25 (aka late game starts)
Gain Sophia as a 5-star unit at the end of the quest line
Points of interest:
Prioritize collab units who are the most powerful
Grind side-story units to break up the monotony
Use cooking as an alternative for resting at inns when you have ingredients
Horror hunting is an effective way to progress reward tracks except for Chrono Cross collab, Ocean Palace side-story, and Seeker/Auction House ranks
Clear as many of the personal quests as you can and get characters at least to 4-stars and level 60
Get Morgana and Joker to level 80 for maximum damage
- Having a level 80 character means all of your under-60s will gain double XP, making it easier to level them up
Late game - Main Story Part 2 starts (level: 60 - 80)
Here the main focus is to finish up the optional side stuff from mid game (IDA School #1, Ocean Palace #1, Two Knights, Lost Tome & Silver Flower, all collabs) so you can start opening up the rest of the side-story chains. Also, gather your first full level 80 team to start clearing Very Hard (VH) Another Dungeons for 5-star tomes (at least >80 light/shadow on the team to open up the second reward slot). Of interest in the later side-stories that open up include:
Tower & Witch (Cyrus 5-star tome)
Azure Rebel (Riica 5-star tome, Helena 5-star tome)
IDA School #2 and #3 (new units Saki and Mana, upgrade Jade 5-star)
Ocean Palace #2 (Sheila 5-star)
First Knight (Deirdre 5-star)
Other things to finish grinding include:
Get the remaining Tales characters to 5-star
Get the remaining Chrono Cross characters to 5-star
Finish grinding up the remaining Persona 5 characters to level 80
Start and complete cat battles to promote Bivette to 5-stars
Grind light/shadow levels on your in-game units to unlock extra reward slots when running VH dungeons (also super boss preparation): Yuri, Cress, Milla, Kid, Serge, Violet, Aldo, Cyrus
Aldo becomes a DPS monster at 255 light, so grind him a lot
Optional: Joker and Morgana for dark battery
Limited grind: Harle is good enough at 120 shadow, which opens up her fifth skill slot and second badge slot. She's mostly useful for mana recharge and regen/healing, so unless she's your main fire DPS (who should be Kid, not Harle), you can stop at 120.
A team of Yuri, Velvet, Morgana, Joker, Harle + Serge will give you 80 shadow with no grind (2nd reward slot in VH dungeons). Yuri, Velvet, Harle, and Serge in the front line during AF will spike down most bosses in level 70 dungeons or lower.
A team of Milla, Cress, Kid, Serge, Violet + Joker will give you 80 light with no grind (2nd reward slot in VH dungeons). Milla, Serge, Kid, and Violet in the front line during AF will spike down most bosses in level 70 dungeons or lower.
End game - Finish Main Story, grinding Grasta (level: 80)
At this point, you'll want more than one team of level 80s (4-star units max out at level 60). You'll want to equip the team with max level weapons and start grinding the optional side bosses. If you've been collecting daily 50 stones, you should manage an average of two 10-pulls a month. Save some for special events, otherwise go and do your two 10-pulls a month and start grinding those 4.5-star characters to full 5-stars.
And that...is the Another Eden experience. Phew!