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Today we will take a quick look at
Cry - Dark Rise of Antihero (also known as Cry - The Blackend Soul), the latest free to play ARPG from Eyedentity that was recently launched on Android and iOS, and I will share a few advices that will help you thruought your journey. The guide will be split into: Beginner Tips and Advanced Tactics.
Beginner Tips:1. Play all Characters - In others games you usually choose the character that best fits your playstile and stick with it till the end, but in Cry it will be a good idea to play all the characters available (at the point I am writing this, there are three characters) as you will gain a lot of free diamonds that will be account bound. So you can gather all the free diamonds on each char and then decide on what char you should spend them (you are not in a hurry as the first missions are quite easy, so you don't need to spend any money or diamonds right away).
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2. Focus on Events - Although Eyedentity didn't launch a real marketing campaign for this title, there are quite a lot of events happening at launch (lvl up, daily log-in, facebook events) that will award you with great rewards. Keep an eye on each promotion requirement and try to focus on completing them.
3. Mix AoE and Single Target Skills - Cry features a combat system based on skill combos, where you will get the chance to develop your character strengths by investing the available skill points in different abilities. At first you will be tempted to go all-in on the AoE skills as mobs comes from all directions and it will be easier to clear the dungeons using AoE, but you need to remember that at the end of each dungeon and map there is a final boss, and at the "end game" raids will also be available. So even if the early skill points will go into AoE skills, invest the later ones into single target skills so you stand a chance against the high tier bosses.
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4. Complete all Daily Quests - In this aspect, Cry is no different from other games that you played before, as they have a lot of daily quests split between daily dungeons, Realm of Trials, Battle Arenas and World Raid. Completing these challenges will award you with gold, runes, equipment and crafting materials.
5. Check for Free Draws - After finishing several dungeons, when you are coming back to the main screen to upgrade your gear, learn new skills or change your rune setup, check the shop (gear tab) option for free draws (notice that you need to scroll a little for the armor free draw). This option will be available at a certain time, so you don't want to miss the chance to get some powerful new items (the high grade weapon/armor chests will reward grade C-SS items).
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6. Disable the Auto Use Skill Function - The game features an auto-battle option that you will probably use most of the times. By default the auto-use-skill function is activated (the game basically run by itself), but this will cost you 500 gold for each battle. It's not much, but if you are actually playing the game, it will be wise to turn it off and do the skills manually.
7. Keep an Eye for the Ultimate Skill - During each encounter, for a short amount of time, an ultimate skill will pop up, and if you tap it in time, your hero will perform a powerful skill that will do a huge amount of damage.
8. Clean your Inventory - As you have only a certain amount of inventory slots that can fill up pretty quick, be sure to clean your inventory by selling or upgrading (more about this in the second part of the guide) your gear. If your inventory is full, the additional rewards will be transformed into gold, and you don't want that awesome piece of SS gear to turn into a pile of shiny coins.
9. Use Runes and Battle Buffs - Through your journey you will discover a decent number of runes (more details about it on the second part of the guide) that will help you encounter specific monsters (each stage is weak against a certain type of runes). My advice is to use these runes, and the battle buffs (these buffs are available for gold before each dungeon starts) on the Daily Dungeons and Realm of Trials as you don't want to fail any stage when you have a locked number of entries.
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10. Daily Dungeon Stage - Even if you feel that the game is not challenging enough at the beginning, don't change the daily dungeon stage during the first days, as you will probably end up dead due to the highly increased difficulty, and you will lose one entry.
Advanced Tactics:1. Deploy your Familiars - The familiar system is similar with the garrison/order hall companion system from World of Warcraft. You have a few minions that can either assist in battle or go complete different missions for you.
The higher tier the familiar has, the better chance to complete the mission it has. You can send them into 1h, 3h or 6h missions for a high chance of acquiring gold and crafting material and a low chance of getting familiar xp cards and weapons.
At the early stages you don't really need their help in battles so don't waste any time and send them on the available missions.
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2. Gear Types & Stats - In Cry, there are 7 grades of gear (from E to SS) and 5 types of quality tiers (rusty, antiquated, fine, reinforced and unbreakable). Even if you have the same grade on two similar pieces, the stats may differ based on their quality score, so keep an eye on this also when choosing the right item to equip.
The main stats for gear are ATK - for weapon, DEF - for helmets, armors, shoes and gloves, and HP - for rings and necklaces, while the secondary stats will be randomly given based on the gear grade. Beside the normal equipment, Cry also features Costumes that can further enhance your character stats. The basic Costume will give DEF and the special weapon will give ATK. Costumes secondary stats may be changed with gems.
3. Upgrading your Gear - Any item can be upgraded by various methods:
- Item Enhance - This is basically the enchant option where you can enhance gear up to +30 for each grade. Costumes can be enhanced to a maximum of +9.
- Item Evolve - This option will allow you to evolve an item to a higher grade. A +30 gear can be evolved to a higher grade by using gold or chaosites (a crafting material obtained through various dungeons) and a +9 costume can be evolved with gems.
- Item Combine - If you have 2 pieces of gear of the same quality, you can enhance them to +30 and then combine them into a higher grade item. This option is only available for the basic gear (no costumes).
4. Rune System - In Cry there are 5 different attributes and runes: water, fire, earth, light and dark. Same as gear, runes has different grades, but no quality differences. When used in a battle the rune durability will decrease, and when depleted, the rune will become useless.
Each character has 6 different rune slots that are unlocked at certain levels, and runes can be activated one at a time. You will get to choose what type of runes to use before each mission/dungeon, after searching the type of mobs that you will encounter.
Same grade of runes can be synthesized into a higher grade rune by using gold. The more runes you use, the higher chance of success you get.
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5. Crafting - Through crafting you can obtain powerful gear that have a set effect. Besides the basic stats, you will be able to add 2 random secondary stats by using gems.
Materials used for crafting:
- Dragon Scale - Acquired through different stages (the normal map dungeons)
- Divine Shard - Acquired from Multi Raid
- Relic Piece - Can be bought with battle coins earned inside the Arena
- Chaosite - Acquired from Daily Dungeons
- Bloody Steel - Acquired from destroying S and SS gear
6. Crafting and Upgrading SS gear - For crafting you will need bloody steels that can be obtained as mentioned above, by destroying previous rank items or SS gear that you don't need (for example you can get it as a reward for a free draw, but with stats that you don't like).
Once you have the desired SS gear, enhance it to +30 in order to unlock a new option called Liberate that will improve your gear current stats.
The final upgrade is called Outforge and is available only for liberated SS gear. For this you will need gold, strengtheners and a bit of luck as it's not a 100% chance process. When you fail the outforged stage will remain, but the materials used will be lost.
I hope that this guide managed to answer some of your question and that it will give you a more pleasant gameplay experience.
The latest update brought to the Japanese version of 
