The free-to-play game Tower of Fantasy has released globally, scoring impressive numbers of players at launch. Tower of Fantasy is an open-world, gacha,MMORPGgame by Perfect World, for both PC and mobile devices. The massive world has a lot to offer, but there are quite a few systems and mechanics to familiarize yourself with, which can be a little overwhelming. In thisTower of Fantasy Special Orders System Explained Guide we’ll give you everything you should know about summons, pity, SSR selector, as well as the whole gacha and banner systems.
Tower of Fantasy Special Orders System Explained - A Guide to Which SSR to Pick
If you are new to the genre, gacha is referred to the way items/weapons or even characters are gained through a loot box type of system. Players earn in-game currency while playing, then spend them on wishing or in this case Special Orders for the character or weapon. These Special Orders have a chance to grant you the characters you want, but with a certain drop rate. If a number of Special Orders go unfulfilled, the game will take “pity” on you, and will grant players a guaranteed character from the highest rank. This character is either totally random, or has a 50% chance to be the featured character, depending on which banner you wish on.
You can also buy the in-game currency with real money, if you want to progress faster. That’s why gacha games can be known as pay-to-win, and you can spend real money. However, I play Tower of Fantasy without spending, and create all my guides from a free-to-play prospective. I aim to help players navigate through the complex systems of gacha without feeling like they need to spend (unless they want to). Once you figure out how the character systems work, you can enjoy the wonderful world of Aida, putting a wide variety of teams at your fingertips.
Tower of Fantasy in my opinion is especially generous and friendly to free-to-play players. Through this guide, I’ll explain how to get the most out of it.
Special Orders and How They Work
In Tower of Fantasy, there are two types of banners to summon from, weapon and Matrices banners. Both types have a standard banner, and limited-time banner, with a total of four main banners. ToF calls banners “Special Orders”, and it has a separate menu for them. In general, you can buy any currency with 150 Dark Crystal. However, some banners are more worthwhile to use Dark Crystal on, while others aren’t.
Choice of Weapons
The standard banner of weapons is where you may summon for all the permanent weapons. Each order uses aGold Nucleusand has a 0.75% chance of granting players an SSR weapon, and a 1% chance for an SR Weapon. These low chances are compensated by the Pity System, where you are guaranteed an SSR weapon every 80 orders, and an SR every 10 orders. On top of that, the first 30 wishes for a new character guarantee another SSR weapon, one time only.
If you get lucky and acquire an SSR early, your pity counter doesn’t reset, and you get another SSR at the 80-orders mark. That’s whyTower of Fantasyis considered to be quite generous to players, as players can build their roster of SSR weapons faster this way.
Gold Nucleus
Gold Nucleiare scattered around the world of Aida, you may collect them as you explore, as well as get them from quest rewards. You also get 10Gold Nucleifrom the “Side by Side” event, which grants a free reward for every new account. Another 10Gold Nucleusis given from the pre-registration event, for every player creating their account within the first six months of the game’s launch. On top of that, you get moreGold Nucleifrom daily bounties and doing various adventure activities. So overall, you don’t have to use your premium currency “Dark Crystal” to buy wishes from the standard banner. You should save these for the limited banner instead.
SSR Weapons currently on offer in the Choice Weapons banner are Meryl, Tsubasa, Zero, Coco, King, Shiro, Samir, Huma, and Crow. So nine in total, with an equal chance to show up when you hit the 0.75% chance, or reach pity. In the far future, Tower of Fantasy can add some of the limited characters to the standard banner, but we have no schedule yet.
Black Nucleus
Another currency you can use to summon on the Choice Weapon banner is by using Black Nucleus. This currency is more widely available, but has a much lower chance of granting an SR or SSR character as well as no pity guarantee. The chances are 0.3% for SSR, and 3% for SR.
Weapons Store
You can open this store by clicking “Weapons Store” located at the bottom left of the “Choice Weapons” Banner. An alternative way is to open the Commissary shop from the main menu, and choose “Weapons Store”.
For each Gold Nucleusyou spend, you get one Black Gold currency. Black Gold currency can then be used to purchase copies of the weapons you already have to increase their advancement. A copy of an SSR weapon costs 120 Black Gold, and a copy of an SR weapon costs 35 Black Gold. However, you should never use Black Gold to buy SR weapons, these are abundant, and you will easily get them all to the sixth advancement anyway.
Black Gold can be either used to advance your current main weapon. Or can be saved for later, when they add limited characters to the standard banner. Most limited weapons will slowly power creep current weapons in the standard banner.
Limited Weapons (Rebirth of Clemency)
Limited banners in Tower of Fantasy run for about three weeks total, then change. you’re able to useRed Nucleito make one summon, and you have to use yourDark Crystalsto getRed Nuclei.OneRed Nucleuscosts 150xDark Crystals.So filling the pity counter requires 12,000Dark Crystals.There’s no other way to getRed Nucleusbesides the “Side by Side II” event, which rewards new accounts with 10Red Nucleione time only.
There’s no pity at 30 wishes, and only pity comes at the 80 wishes mark, with the pity counter carrying over to the next banner. Getting an SSR weapon early doesn’t reset pity, and you are still guaranteed an SSR at 80 wishes.
Limited banners offer one character with an up rate chance when you get lucky, or reach the pity. The up rate has a 50% chance in granting a limited weapon, so even if you hit the pity one time or several times, there’s no guarantee to get the weapon. You keep this in mind when wishing on limited banners because going for pity over and over might be a waste. What you should do instead is aim to get the limited character from the Limited Store.
Limited Store
Opening this store is less obvious than the standard banner store. You have to open the “Special Orders” menu, then click the limited banner. “Rebirth of Clemency” is the current banner name with Nemesis as an rate up, but the name will change with each new character. So open the limited banner regardless of name, and in the bottom left corner you will find the “Limited Store” button.
Similar to a standard weapon store, spendingRed Nucleion a limited banner grants Flame Gold. For 120 Flame Gold, you can purchase the limited weapon currently available. This purchase is possible, even if you don’t have the weapon, so it’s a way to guarantee getting the weapon.
120 Flame Gold needs a total of 18,000Dark Crystalspent to guarantee the weapon, which is a massive amount of currency. As a free-to-play, you may or may not reach this threshold within the duration of the first banner, depending on how much you explore within the first three weeks. However, you will fall short in subsequent limited banners, whenDark Crystalsfrom one-time rewards in open world start to run out. Flame Gold currency doesn’t last beyond the limited banner duration, and converts to Gold Flame once the limited banner is over. So you really shouldn’t go on a spending spree with Dark Crystals, and keep saving until the following:
If you are not sure which limited character you should aim for, be sure to follow us. We will prepare more guides for Tower of Fantasy, and how to build your account in upcoming weeks.
What SSR to Pick from the SSR Selector
Now that we explained the gacha system for weapons, it’s time to explain the guaranteed SSR selector ticket. It’s a new beginner reward, from the in-game event, that you get after a week or so of moderate playtime. In ourTower of Fantasy Getting started guide, I highly recommended not using this SSR selector early on in the game. But you should rather wait and see what weapons you get from the gacha first, before making a decision.
In this guide, I’ll go through the options you have, depending on what weapons you get. But first, let’s go over what a new player account will get through gacha.
How Many SSRs You get from Gacha
Tracking the number of SSR characters you get at the beginning is not a hard job, since the gacha in Tower of Fantasy is more predictable. Within a week to ten days, you will approximately have the following:
So in total, you get three guaranteed SSR weapons, and a fourth one with a higher chance. That’s assuming you have zero luck on the standard banner, and did not get an early SSR before the pity. But I’ll count only four to account for the worst-case scenario.
What Actual SSR Weapons You May Get from Special Orders
With four pulls, you might get four different weapons from the nine available in the standard banner. Or you may get three weapons and one awakening, or two with two awakening passives. The nine are Meryl, Tsubasa, Zero, Coco, King, Shiro, Samir, Huma, and Crow.
Weapons from the standard banner are split between different roles, which help build a team:
So you will be getting a combination of these. You should aim to build a weapon set with three weapons of different types, and some synergy.
What you Should Pick from the Selector?
The simple answer is: Pick what your account lacks, whether it’s Shatter, Charge, or a DPS weapon. Be sure a new character is better than an advancement.
I’ll use the example from mystarter build: Ene the Ice Pummeler. On that account I got four SSR pulls, one Tsubasa, one Shiro, and two Crow. As Shiro doesn’t have good Shatter, I resort to the SR Ene for Shatter, and use Tsubasa for Charge, and Crow for burst DPS. It’s a solid team, but you might not be happy with an SR in your team, while you have an SSR selector. In that case, you need to get a Shatter weapon, and your choice is between Meryl, King, or Huma.
I’ll go through more examples, but will not cover every single scenario.
Nemesis, Samir, Crow, Shiro, Coco:
You pulled on the limited banner, got lucky and acquired Nemesis, with an advancement one or not. She enables Volt resonance, and either Samir or Crow will be perfect match for her. However, Crow and Samir doesn’t have a solid Charge, nor any Shatter. It’s better to pick Huma from the selector, because she can play both shatter and charge.
Meryl, Huma, Coco:
You get two solid shatter units, who happen to have a Def role, so your core team will get Fortitude resonance. You can play a tank in multiplayer, but you need good sustainable DPS with a decent Charge. In this instance, it’s better to pick Tsubasa from the selector as she plays Charge and sustains DPS.
Zero, Samir, King
You already got a good team with all charge, shatter, and DPS. It also has attack resonance already, so you don’t necessarily need any additional weapons as you’re pretty much covered. You have either the option to pick a new character to form another team, or pick Advancement for Zero, to enable healing.
Coco, Zero, Nemesis, Meryl
In this team you already got good Shatter, Volt resonance,a good healer, and one good Charge. So what’s lacking? A burst DPS to improve your PVE.
Pick Samir from the selector, she plays well with Nemesis and King in the solo content. You can also play Nemesis, Samir, Zero as a healing team in multiplayer and when it comes to PVP.
Matrices Special Orders
A Matrix is like an artifact system you attach to weapons. It’s the main customization tool in team building, after picking three weapons to form a weapon set. Unlike character/weapons, Matrices are not exclusive in the gacha system, but you may earn them as rewards in various activities in the game.
They come in all rarities, from Blue (R), Purple (SR), and Golden (SSR). Higher rarities only drop from content available at high character levels, so you will not feel their effect early on in the game.
So overall, spending Dark Crystals is reallynotrecommended, especially on standard Matrix banners. However, limited weapons come with limited Matrices as well. While most of the limited Matrices are tailored to their specific weapon, some have are more general, and can be useful on all types.
Choice Matrices
The standard banner for Matrices is called “Choice Matrices”. This banner has all the matrices that you can earn as a reward in the game. These are all N, and SR Rank. Among the SSR it has all nine sets matching the nine standard weapons.
So it is far less valuable. It doesn’t make sense to spend premium currency to get similar matrices to the ones you can get by simply playing the game.
What you should use is theProof of Purchaseyou earn directly from the game instead. These are similar to theGold Nucleuswhich you may’t use anywhere else, so just spend them here. The pity counter gives an SSR Matrix in 40 wishes, and an SR in 10 wishes, butProof of Purchaseis not as abundant asGold Nucleus.Also Matrices come in sets, so one piece is likely not that useful. You need at least two pieces from the same set on SSR, and at least 3 pieces of the set on SR for the set bonus.
The base chance of getting an SR Matrix per wish is 7.5%, and an SSR Matrix is 1.7%. These are higher chances than weapons, but with all the layers of randomness, it becomes hard to put an actual strategy for summoning on this banner.
Matrix Store
From bottom left, you’re able to open the Matrix Store, to buy a Matrix box from the set you desire. It’s a very strong option that should be left to get the very last (fourth) piece of the important set.
A Matrix Box requires 80Base Chips, which is the currency you get from orders on the “Choice Matrices” banner. Getting to 80 orders on the Matrix banner is not an easy feat, so don’t expect this to be an option within the first couple of weeks. I played for two weeks without reaching the first pity, which is set 40.
Limited Matrices (Reconstruction)
The limited banner for Matrices is always tied with the limited weapon banner, featuring sets for the rate up character. At launch, it has a nemesis set, which gives a Volt attack to the character getting healed. It’s a very specific set bonus, suiting the Nemesis weapon, or any healer weapon in a Volt team. However, other future Matrices such as the Claudia set are much more useful, suiting several other weapons. These sets have a good two-piece bonus, which might justify using the limited Matrix banner.
You need to use aSpecial Voucherfor summoning in this banner, and that takesDark Crystalsto buy. Pity is 10 for SR, and 40 for SSR, with the current rate up Matrices having a 50% chance to show up on pity. It’s a bit costly to try chase a full set from gacha, so it’s usually a better idea to claim them from the shop instead.
Limited Matrices show up in same shop as limited weapons. You can access either of the Limited weapons or limited Matrix banners, by clicking on “Limited Store” on the bottom left.
The currency used is theOverclocking Chip,and it takes 80 of them to buy one specific piece. If you need four pieces, you will spend a lot. Assuming you are very lucky, and win the 50:50 chance twice, you will end up with two pieces, and only need 80Overclocking Chipsfor a third piece. Now you have to go through the pity twice more, in order to get the fourth piece. That’s about 24k Dark Crystals on average, which is not available for free to play players, and likely not worth your while.
If you get the limited character, you can purchase the limited Matrix box for 50Overclocking Chips.It’s a cheaper alternative and you only need to hit pity once. That way, you get one piece from the pity, and second one from box.
Note thatOverclocking Chipsconvert intoBase Chipsafter the limited banner timer runs out.
That wraps up our guide for Tower of Fantasy. Be sure to stay tuned for moreTower of Fantasy Guidesthroughout August as we will be putting together some Build Guides, and Game Systems Guides. Don’t forget to check out ourTower of Fantasy Getting Started Guide, andF2P Starter Build – Ene, the Ice Pummeler.
