Summoners War – Gameplay FAQ (Items, Rewards and Tips)

This guide contains a wealth of useful tips, answers to burning questions, and explanations of basic game mechanics.

Gameplay FAQ

Do I have to clear the Rift Dungeon first in order to collect the reward?

You’ll get rewards according to the damage you inflicted on the Boss regardless of whether you cleared the Rift Dungeon or not. In other words, your reward depends on the amount of damage inflicted on the Boss.

When can I enter the Rift Dungeon?

You can enter the Rift Dungeon at any time!

What kind of rewards can I get from the Rift Dungeon?

You can get the following from the Rift Dungeon.

  1. Various materials used in the new Craft System.
  2. Various materials used to Craft the new Runes.
  3. Materials that are required to summon and Power-up the Homunculus.

Can I place the Homunculus in the Defense/Attack Deck?

Homunculus can be placed in the Attack Deck, but can’t be placed in the Defense Deck of the Arena/Guild Battle.

Can I use the same Homunculus name as other users?

Yes, you may use the same Homunculus name. I accidentally selected the wrong Homunculus skill. How do I change it? There’s a skill reset feature that allows you to reset the Homunculus skill.

I can’t Craft Runes

Only 3★+ Runes can be Crafted. (You can’t Craft 1 – 2★ Runes)

  • Craft Low Rune -> 3 – 5★ -> Normal Grade and above
  • Craft Mid Rune -> 4 – 6★ -> Magic Grade and above
  • Craft High Rune -> 5 – 6★ -> Rare Grade and above

I did not get the proper rewards for the World Boss

Despite having a higher total damage, you must also be within the correct percentile for certain rankings, and there are no issues with the wrong rewards being sent out. Also, please note that the top 3 grades require specific ranks to receive those rewards, however the rest of the grades require a player to come within a certain percentage (for example: 5% of all players who had dealt the most amount of damage).

Please note, you can now view your rank and damage, by entering the game, going to the World Boss and tapping on your nickname.

Why can’t I get 4 or 5 star monsters?

The outcome of summoning is random with rarer monsters having a lower probability. Multiple attempts do not mean the next attempt has any higher chance of a rare monster outcome. Each attempt has the same chance.

Purchases and a user’s level has no effect on the monsters they can summon. All users in the game have the same chance of getting a 4 or 5 star monster. We hope that you get the monster that you are looking for soon!

How do I leave my guild?

If you wish to leave your guild please check the following steps:

  • From the main village screen -> Community -> Guild -> Guild Member -> Scroll to the bottom and tap on “Leave”.

Tower of Ascension did not reset

The tower will reset on the 14th of the month (Global). If the reset still has not happened, let us know the following details:

  1. Hive ID/Nickname
  2. Server
  3. Difficulty (Normal/Hard)

Where do I get light/dark monsters?

Light/Dark monsters can only be obtained through Light/Dark Scrolls, Secret Dungeons, Events (ex: Hall of Heroes), Arena Rewards, Wishing Temple, and Daily Login rewards. Please note, these monsters cannot be obtained from the Mystical Scrolls, Unknown Scrolls, Summoning Stones, and Social Points.

How do I sign-up for the upcoming Guild War?

  • The Guild Leader or Vice Leader can request to join in the upcoming week’s Guild War by going to the Isle of Conquest.
  • From there, choose the members to register as your defensive team. Please kindly note that the number of users you choose for your defense will be the number required for offense battles.
  • A confirmation window will show up stating that the request has gone through.
  • Make sure to apply during the preparation time on Sundays. Guild Wars will go from Monday to Saturday.
  • Also, the guild must have at least 10 members in order to register.

I used an unknown, mystical, crystal summon, but the game crashed and I did not get any monster. If the summon attempt had gone through before the game had crashed, the random monster would still have been given and would be on the island and in the inventory along with the game credits used.

If the crash/disconnect happened prior to the summon attempt, it would have been like the attempt had never happened and the game credits/items would not have been used and so no monster would have been given.

I can’t use Enchanted Gems

Enchanted Gems can only be used on the Runes that reached at least Power-up Lv. 12. In addition, you can also change only one sub-property of each Rune. You can change a sub-property that has been changed before to a different sub-property as long as you have enough Enchanted Gems, but you cannot change more than one sub-property for one Rune.

Please note that you cannot change to a sub-property that is the same as the main property.

  • For instance, you cannot use the Enchanted Gem of ATK (%) to a Rune that has main property of ATK (%).
  • Additionally, you cannot use the Enchanted Gem of DEF (%) to a Rune that has main property of DEF (%).

When you use Enchanted Gems, stats that have been increased via rune power-ups will be ignored.

I can’t use Reappraisal Stones

Reappraisal Stones can only be used on the Runes that reached at least Power-up Lv. 12. The increased amount of stats your Rune gained through power-ups will be applied after the reappraisal, but the sub-properties with increased stats are selected at random.

When you use a Reappraisals Stone on an enchanted Rune, the enchanted stat will disappear.​

What kind of rewards can I get from World Arena?

You can get Medal(s) whenever you win a match. You can use Medals to purchase items at the World Arena Exclusive Shop. There are various items available at the World Arena Exclusive Shop including scrolls, buildings, Ellia’s costumes, rides, Shapeshifting Stones, transmogrification items and other special items.

You can get Season Rewards according to ranks when each season ends. Season Rewards consist of rare items that can be acquired only from that season.

I would like to know more about the Siege Battle

Siege battle is guild battle content where Guilds with 15 to 25 guild members can participate. 3 Guilds will be matched to enter a battle. Each Guild Member has to occupy the opponent’s bases and acquire as many Siege Points as possible within the time.

The battle will end when a Guild acquires 20,000 Siege Points, and the ranks will be decided based on the points each Guild has at that time. The Siege Battle will proceed up to 2 times a week with each battle having 1st and 2nd rounds.

You can learn more about the schedule, battle rules, rewards and others from below.

  • Main Screen → Battle → Isle of Conquest → Siege Battle → Help Icon (“?”) at the bottom-left side of screen
  • Main Screen → NOTICE Icon at the top-left side of screen → Developer’s Note → [Info] New Content (Siege Battle) Update​

How can I get Light Attribute Ifrit?

You can acquire Light Ifrit by purchasing summoning pieces from the special Ancient Magic shop. You can buy 10 summoning pieces with 50 Ancient Coins, and you have to have a total of 100 summoning pieces to summon.

You can earn Ancient Coins through events.

  • Shop – Special – Ancient Magic Shop – Purchase Light Attribute Ifrit Summoning Pieces
  • You can also purchase Summoning Stones, Reappraisal Stones, 6★ Legend Runes from the Ancient Magic Shop.​

I would like to know more about the Tartarus’ Labyrinth

The labyrinth is a dangerous place full of powerful Monsters hidden in each stage. This is guild cooperative content where Guild Members have to explore unlocked stages to find and defeat the final boss, Tartarus.

You can get better rewards if you clear the labyrinth faster. The labyrinth resets after 14 days automatically, so it’s important to clear the labyrinth within the time. If your Guild clears the labyrinth within 14 days or the labyrinth gets reset due to time limit (14 days), a new exploration will begin 6 hours after midnight of the following day.

When your Guild defeats Tartarus, the Ruler of Labyrinth, you will receive Labyrinth Exploration Reward Boxes that include Immemorial Grindstones, Immemorial Gems and many other items. You can learn more about the schedule, battle rules, rewards and others from below.

  • Main Screen → Battle → Tartarus’ Labyrinth → Help Icon (“?”) at the bottom-left side of screen
  • Main Screen → NOTICE Icon at the top-left side of screen → Developer’s Note → [Info] New Guild Content: Tartarus’ Labyrinth 1/2/3

What are Immemorial Grindstones and Immemorial Gems?

Immemorial Grindstones and Immemorial Gems are special items that can be used on Runes similar to the way Grindstones and Enchanted Gems work, but these can be used on all types of runes.

  • You can use the items on the Runes with Power-up Lv. 12 or above.
  • You can change one sub-property per Rune, and cannot change to the sub-property that’s same as the main property.
  • When the Gem is used, the stats increased through rune power-ups will be ignored.
  • When you use a Reappraisal Stone on the enchanted Rune, the enchanted stats will disappear.​

Runes Guide / FAQ

Collecting

When collecting runes, look at the substats before you keep or sell the rune, each kept rune should be upgraded straight away. Why? This way you’ll know what kind of stat values you’ll be looking for.

Substat Synergy

Not every substat synergizes with another. When rolling runes, be strict about it. Understand what categories a rune can fall under, for example a legendary ATK/CR/CD/DEF rune has 2 catagories either ATK or DEF based damage dealer does it roll ATK & DEF? that rune just became a purple rune. selling depends on it’s values.

Attackers: Every attacker wants CR+CD

So one or both of these with ATK/DEF/SPD/HP is a rune that should be rolled. blue rune with CD & ATK? roll it. A purple rune with ATK/CD/DEF? roll it. it’s either a def based or an atk based attacker rune. Sell if it rolls DEF & ATK

Supports: SPD+(HP/DEF)+(ACC/RES)

These can be split into a PvE support and a PvP support.

For PvE you want SPD & ACC, usually upgrading their HP% [4] & [6] gives them enough stats to survive the content you want to bring them in.

So a rune with high ACC or just high speed? use it, stats such as HP/DEF are bonuses.

For PvP you want SPD+(HP/DEF)+(ACC/RES) pick 3 substats if there’s no speed on the rune. Support units for PvP usually want SPD/HP/DEF/RES not many monsters want ACC & RES on a single rune.

Tanks: HP/DEF/RES

Tanks only want to be tanky, Rina, Ramagos(RES+HP), Darion/Xiong Fei/Dias(RES/HP/DEF)

Bomber: ATK+ACC+SPD

A normal bomber build is high ATK, fast and ~85% acc depending on the units, jokers gain +50% acc on their bomb skill so they only need 35%

When hoarding/keeping runes, keep in mind that certain stat combinations are more often sought than others. You’ll build many attackers, but only a few tanks.

  • So to sum it in short
  • Refer to the flowchart
  • 5* hero must be better than a avg 6* blue
  • 5* legend must be better than a avg 6* purple

Bruiser: ATK + HP + DEF + SPD + (CR/RES/ACC)

To start off with, this is going to be the most diverse category as this is a very broad term for tankier monsters that also deal damage. These are monsters that one ends up being a mix between a damage dealer and also being tanky. Having high attack and/or CD on these monsters is not always desired, but end up wanting a balance of HP, DEF, ATK, speed tuned to their team. The slot 4 varies, typically being CD or CR, or HP%.

Examples: Vigor, Khmun, Hraes, Carcano, Perna, Tesa, Kaki, ect.

Click to enlarge…

PVE FAQ

ToAH Auto

Everyone hates having to manual through ToAH each month, and it’s a common question to try to speed it up by trying to make a fast auto team. While this is understandable, it just isn’t worth the effort. Autoing ToAH is not all or nothing. In fact with the very first ToAH team you use on you first week or 2 of a new account, you should already be autoing approximately 60% of ToAH. The next month you do it, you probably can auto 90% of ToAH without even changing any monsters, the upgrades just come from a natural improvement in rune quality, as well as arena/glory towers.

As you start getting into PvP, you can add relevant PvP monsters to your ToAH auto team that you’re already building for PvP purposes. For example, a siege Triana is great for safety and preventing random monsters dying to a bad RNG streak. Nora, Poseidon, Bastet, Savannah, Rica, Bellenus, Cheongpung, etc. are other good nat 5’s that can be thrown into your ToAH auto team once you build them for PvP.

Newer players always forget that this game is about runes. I guarantee you that if you’re still in PvE progression and try to invest into some dot team with Sath that you saw on a youtube video for the purposes of autoing ToAH, you still won’t be able to auto 100% of ToAH because your runes still suck, and now you’ve spent several days or weeks worth of time and resources just to save 1 hour of additional manualing once a month. Better runes acquired through natural progression will already let you auto more and more of ToAH each month. Eventually you’ll be able to auto 100% of ToAH, without having to do any specific investment into it.

Note: I was able to full auto 100% of ToAH, including all bosses, on my 2nd month/rotation with this account. I had 1 loss on floor 99, I simply retried it on auto again and it won the second time. Probably had bad RNG the first time. The team I used for every single stage was Vero Fran Mav Spectra Vigor. You don’t need CC or dots to auto ToAH.

PvE Speed Requirements

“How fast does X monster need to be?” is a common and legitimate question. It’s not an easy one to answer either since it depends a lot on the specific dungeon and team that you’re using. For beginner teams, there really never is a minimum speed required for anything, lower speed for one monster can often be compensated by better runed other monsters on the team. If you look at my rune examples from halfway through progression you can see that I had most damage dealers at around 130-150 speed, and supports at around 180-200 speed. Again this doesn’t mean that 130 speed is an absolute minimum or anything, I was aiming mostly for overall efficiency. All stats will benefit you a little in some way.

As you start moving working on speeding up your dungeon runs, the more important thing to consider is the turn order of your team, rather than any specific speeds of your monsters. For example, you want def breakers and atk buffers to go before your main damage dealers. Specifically on your Giants team, that means you should ensure that Bella and Shannon move before Vero and Spectra. Team up monsters like Raoq and Kro are better moving last, because one part of team up is that it lowers the CD of all monsters that get pulled. So if Spectra moves and uses S2, then Kro moves afterwards with his S2 and pulls Spectra, then Spectra’s S2 is available again on his very next turn (assuming max skilled Spectra S2). If Verde is on your team then he should always be the very last monster to move, as to not waste any of his attack bar boost.

There is however 1 specific PvE speed threshold to be aware of. The fastest speed of any mob in the waves for practically all abyss hard dungeons (Giants, Dragons, Necro) is 169. Ensuring that your damage dealers are faster than that will help speed up your runs. This is something that’s reasonable to aim for towards the later part of PvE progression when you get a higher speed tower and can farm R5 for speed grinds.

As you get further in the game, you may start hearing about speed ticks or ATB (attack bar) ticks, and wonder if it’s something to consider as well. The simple answer is that for starter/beginner teams you can 100% ignore them. End game speed teams may have to consider them in order to try to guarantee a certain number of turns your team has before the boss moves. Since speed teams are squishy and have no sustain, they need to make sure they are able to kill the boss within a set number of moves. However, beginner teams have sustain and are built to take hits. They don’t have to guarantee anything. In addition, they usually contain a lot of monsters that constantly affect ATB in some way for either you or the enemy (for example Vero passive ATB gain on cleanse, slow debuff and ATB reduction from Spectra, etc.) and all those effects render calculating ticks to be useless.

On top of that, rifts and raids calculate ATB and ticks differently from regular Caiross dungeons. ATB mechanics are important to learn and understand eventually especially for PvP, but for PvE progression purposes you have more important things to worry about.

Troubleshooting Team Fails

If I see anyone say “help the team in the guide doesn’t work for me, can someone suggest me some other team” I will come over and slap you. The first lesson anyone should learn about this game is that it’s all about runes. If a team fails, the first thought you should have is not “well this team didn’t work, I need to find a new team.” It should be “hmm I wonder what went wrong, is something not runed correctly or could be runed better?”

Start by doing some troubleshooting on your own. Watch the runs. Is there some monster on your team that is always the first to die? Make it tankier. Do all your monsters always end up cc’ed, and then the boss just wipes them? Make sure you have enough acc on your debuffers (or multiple debuffers when it comes to SR5), and consider making your support monsters faster. For dungeons where the boss gets permanently stronger or limits you to a certain number of turns (rifts, raids, pc10), you may simply just need more damage on your damage dealers. But out of those, 90% of the time the issue can be solved by just making whatever monsters are dying first to be tankier. You can lose some damage to gain the extra HP/Def, dead monsters do 0 damage.

Other things to ask yourself: do I have enough accuracy on monsters that need to land debuffs? Am I missing skillups that can greatly benefit those monsters? Is the turn order of my team correct?

Beginner Nat 4 Event Recommendation

In the past we’ve always recommended water twins for Event 4 of the Summoners Welcome Event where you get to pick a free elemental nat 4. That means holding on to it and waiting until you get lucky and summon either a Talia or Sabrina from scrolls, and then using the event to get the other one for free to complete the pair.

This is still a great option, and in fact water twins are currently used in even more places than before. For example now you can use water twins in both DBAH and NBAH as well, which was not recommended pre-Reloaded. This is in addition to them also being amazing in both Rifts and Raids, and siege offense when it comes to PvP.

However, now I feel that there are 2 other options to consider for this pick: Galleon and Astar.

Galleon is important because unless you have Teshar, he is a key piece to speeding up your GBAH team. No other monster in the game does what Galleon does, aoe atk buff and aoe def break all in 1 skill. Since GBAH is extremely important and you should be spending all your time in PvE farming Giants, speeding up GBAH can be a really high priority. Galleon continues to be useful late game in PvP too, any siege player will have multiple skilled up dupes of him.

The reason for Astar is that NBAH is by far the hardest part of PvE, and it is extremely difficult to make a consistent beginner team without using some more premium options. Astar is one of the best monsters in the game for NBAH, and is still used in eventual end game speed NBAH teams. On top of that, she’s useful in several other PvE places such as SBRAH, SDs, monster subjugation, timed stages in guild lab, and speed auto ToAN.

Devilmon Priority

As far as devilmons for PvE goes, there’s really not that much that absolutely need them. Vero is important for sure (both S1 and S2) but after that it’s just a bunch of 2As that you could possibly devil. There are no more fusion nat5s that are recommended to even build anymore – no Sig, no Bale, no Jeanne, no XF, etc. If you have a nat 5 cleanser you could devil that for SR5 (for example Anavel, Vela, Jamire), otherwise the other cleansers have easier options for skillups (Delphoi and Lisa have fusable skillups, Raviti has nat 3 skillups, Lulu/Lala are 2As that don’t need skillups).

Let’s talk about the 2As, these are in the order that I built them for this progression, yours may vary slightly:

  • Kro – don’t devil, the skillups don’t help that much.
  • Spectra – S2 CD from 3 turn to 2 turn and S3 increased activation chance are both extremely good. Devil for sure.
  • Raoq – this one is super controversial. Just like Kro the skillups don’t help that much. But unlike Kro, Raoq is used in PvP, and I place a lot higher priority for skillups on PvP monsters given that this is a PvP game. Damage skillups on damage dealers are underrated. I deviled mine but a lot of people choose not to.
  • Lulu – not needed for PvE, low priority even for PvP but if you find yourself using her a lot you can devil.
  • Kahli – similar to Lulu (not needed for PvE), except in the current meta she is extremely important for siege. If you enjoy siege she is definitely a devil target.
  • Vigor – yes. Skillups are very helpful, the monster is very important for PvP.
  • Icaru – no. Skillups are even less helpful than Kro.

So basically PvE devil order is just Vero > 2A Spectra > 2A Raoq* > 2A Vigor, with Raoq being optional. Devils after that should be based on your PvP needs.

There’s also 3 elemental nat 4s in the game right now that I would use devils on. These 3 monsters are stronger than 90% of nat 5s out there, have no easy skill ups (i.e. no fusable options, pieces don’t appear in guild shop), and absolutely require those skillups to function. That means if you listen to the common bad advice of “never devil nat 4s” then you can enjoy waiting over a year to RNG summon 10 copies of a nat 4 before you can start using them. Meanwhile I just devil them and can immediately use them to help me progress in both PvE and PvP within my first month of the game.

These 3 nat 4s are:

  • Galleon – irreplaceable component of speed GBAH teams (without Teshar), and he’s not usable until you max his S3 at the very least. S1 should be maxed too because it’s an additional def break chance. If you get lucky you can leave S2 unmaxed.
  • Carc – possible usage in SBRAH, but a lot more important for dhole raids. Not usable until S2 is maxed, but you should eventually max S1 as well.
  • Khmun – used in some dhole dungeons, particularly Karzhan. Needs S2 maxed, S1 and S3 are nice to have maxed eventually.

Out of those 3, only Galleon is really the important one for PvE, I know the dhole usage for the other 2 aren’t as big of a deal. But the real reason these are high priority is for their PvP usage. All 3 are must-haves for siege and people build multiple dupes of each of them. Galleon is crucial for arena as well.

Ancient Coins and Eirgar

What should you buy with ancient coins? Save up your first 500 coins to get Eirgar (Dark Vampire Lord), then after that just keep getting reapps and nothing else. The only 2 other monsters you can consider are Bernadotte (Fire Shadow Claw) and Elsharion (Light Ifrit), but those are a lot more niche. Don’t get them unless you have a specific reason to, and don’t go searching for a reason to get them and use them. Light Dual Blade, Wind Lollipop, Light Elite Magical Archer, and Dark Cow Girl have absolutely no use right now.

Why Eirgar? The main reason for Eirgar is that he’s good for rifts. He is absolutely not needed to make your initial SSS rift teams, but later on he can be a replacement for Fran and improve your scores. Higher rift scores do give you better drops, for example a score of 10 million has more than double the drop rate of legendary gems than a score of 5 million.

In addition, Eirgar can be used in PC10. I don’t want to commit too hard on this point at this current moment with the abyss difficulty of Punisher’s Crypt on the horizon which can change everything, but he is great as both the atk buffer and a dark tank for the dungeon. In this playthrough I used Kro + Kahli because I simply did not have enough coins yet to get an Eirgar, but I’ve tested on other accounts that Eirgar is a nice upgrade for a Verde Raoq Eirgar +2 team (for example Kro + Icaru, but other DDs can work here, just use whatever strong single target DDs you already have built).

The ideal way to rune Eirgar is triple fight on a damage build, moving first on your team (so likely Spd/Cd/Atk). If you don’t have the fight runes just put him on any broken/stat set.

Additional Things

Some additional things I’ve learned:

  • Adding Amir and/or Lyn to your GBAH team when you’re at the Vero Galleon Spectra Kro whomie stage is very difficult. I could not find a way to get Amir on my team while still maintaining 99.9% consistency. It is likely that this part just takes a huge jump in rune quality (you lose a lot of safety if you take out Spectra), so I wouldn’t stress too much about it and focus on other things once you’ve reached this step.
  • 2A Icaru is really good for NBAH (among other things). He’s definitely an overall important 2A monster to have for PvE. If you’re struggling with NBAH and don’t have Icaru, get him. He’s even more important than water twins, I know I said water twins are good but they can present some challenging issues if they’re too strong and end up killing your own team if stolen. Ideal NBAH team has Icaru and no water twins anyway.
  • I’ve updated the PC10 section to include Riley or Eirgar as alternatives to Kahli, for returning players who have them already. Eirgar is ideal in the dungeon, again the reason I didn’t mention him before is that if you follow this guide with a new account then you should be able to complete all of it before even collecting 500 ancient coins to buy an Eirgar.
  • Added an edit to ToAH Auto. I was able to full auto all of TOAH (including all bosses, no exceptions) my second month with Vero Fran Mav Spectra Vigor.
  • New update did away with arena towers and it’s given to you for free with summoner leveling. The leveling process shouldn’t take that long to max so I wouldn’t stress about which towers to level up first, you’ll get them all soon enough. But if you do want to care, just go for energy skills > SPD/CD/HP/DEF/ATK > elemental ATK > guild skills.

Steel Fortress and Punisher’s Crypt Abyss difficulties have been released. The Abyss difficulty of both of these dungeons are not significantly harder than the previous B10’s. It may take slightly higher rune quality overall (for example, more damage and more tankiness required), but no change is required to the core team. It is recommended for both of these dungeons to go straight to the Abyss hard difficulty and not farm B10 at all. So basically anytime you see SF10 or PC10 mentioned in this guide, pretend it says SFAH and PCAH.

To summarize, for SFAH:

  • Beginner team: Loren Fran Ling Ling Raoq Kro
  • Advanced team: Lushen Ling Ling Eirgar Raoq [Kro/Brandia]

For PCAH:

  • Beginner team: Verde [Kahli/Riley/Eirgar] Raoq Kro [1A Bella/Icaru], target L > R > Boss
  • Advanced team: Verde Eirgar Raoq Icaru [Pang/Elsha/Kro], straight boss

Thanks for reading the guide, I hope it was helpful to you!

Egor Opleuha
About Egor Opleuha 4460 Articles
Egor Opleuha, also known as Juzzzie, is the Editor-in-Chief of Gameplay Tips. He is a writer with more than 12 years of experience in writing and editing online content. His favorite game was and still is the third part of the legendary Heroes of Might and Magic saga. He prefers to spend all his free time playing retro games and new indie games.

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