Street Fighter Duel [F2P] Early Game Progression Guide for Beginners


With Street Fighter Duel out for a week, here is what I have learned from 7 days of playing through the story mode. Here are some useful tips that will help you play efficiently if you are a new player. I made a few mistakes here and there, so if you avoid those pitfalls, your account will do well.

We have an unofficial wiki here now if you want to check out the stats.

Starting Your Account

Right at the get go, you will go through the tutorial stage. After completion of Chapter 1, you will get to roll for 10 units and you are guaranteed one of the 3 units:

  • C. Viper (Flame) – 2 AoE attacks and great overall.
  • Poison (Thunder) – Also has 2 AoE attacks.
  • Cammy (Wind) – Single target DPS with armor break.

Of the 3, I would recommend Cammy the most due to her fast speed. Since speed is key in getting the first combo in battle, she will help you most of the time by killing your enemies before they can kill yours. This is especially important since as F2P, you probably won’t have Chun Li, who is the fastest unit for launch.

If you want to roll for Cammy, just go and start on different server. It will take 10-15 minutes each time.

At the end of 7 days of the growth event, you will have the option to buy the Fighter’s Selection Chest for 1800 gems to get an additional copy of Cammy, C. Viper or Poison. You can also pick Hawk, Dhalsim or Elena as well.

Elena is another top choice to pick if you didn’t pull her during the first 7 days. She is great as the tag member and can buff your best attacker on the main team + healing in side quests such as Shadaloo and Combat Operation.

As you progress to chapter 2 and 3, you will earn gem rewards in various sections and also get extra arcade coins to draw more characters. After the completion of chapter 3, you should have about 30 extra pulls. From re-playing it a few times, I noticed you will generally get at least 4 A grade characters during the first 50 pulls. After that, the average chance of pulling an A grade character is about 30 pulls.

Team Building and Combo Guide in Street Fighter Duel

Now that you have some characters, it is time to talk about how to form a decent team for story mode. You get to field up to 4 characters for battle, with 1 as the tag member. You cannot choose who you want on which position. You can also add 2 additional units as stat boost for 2 of the main team members.

Keep in mind later on in Chapter 5, you will unlock Limit Break section, which allows you to put characters there to match the lowest level member on the team. So you ever only need to level 4 characters and the rest goes into Limit Break.

The order of who is in position 1 is something like this:

  • Tanks > Balanced Fighters > Assassins > Tech Fighters

If you run all assassins, then the game will auto sort which assassin is the “beefier” one. Now, you will want a team member who is fast so that you can activate the first hit and get to combo your enemies first. The top units for this category that is accessible for F2P players are:

  • Chun Li (Wind 125) – hardest one to get
  • Cammy (Wind 123) – available in the first 10 pull (33% chance)
  • Decapre (Flame 122)
  • Guy (Wind 122)
  • Beast Zangief (Wind 116 + 10 after level 121 passive upgrade that lasts 8 seconds)

So far, Thunder faction lacks a good speed unit, but that could change in the future when new characters are released. Therefore, Cammy is the most logical choice for F2P if you want to go first most of the time. However, if you prefer AoE damage, then C.Viper or Poison are good options as starters.

On day 2, after getting Mad Ryu (A+) from the growth event, you will want to start building a team around him as he is key to getting you past tough stages (such as 7-40 and 8-40) much faster than normal (once he gets to level 121 to upgrade his passive). He will be blasting extra hadoukens after getting a kill to carry you to victory. But before that, he is just a decent single target damage dealer.

You will also want to utilize the faction bonus.

Of the 3 factions (Thunder, Wind, Flame), Thunder and Wind are the more preferred elements to build as the main team, with Fire being the support. Due to Mad Ryu being given for free and the fastest speed units are wind, you will have an easier time building Thunder and Wind.

Throughout the story mode, you cannot always steam roll every enemy. At certain checkpoints, you will face tough opponents that spike in difficulty and damage. You may have to use a tank at times to soak up damage or run a full damage team to burst down the enemy. Your levels also have a lot to do with whether you can pass a particular stage. Sometimes, you can go past certain stages early if you have the right team setup and combo.

You will most likely want 2 characters in your team that can cover combo skill 1/2 and the other 2 cover combo skill 2/3. This gives you a good chance to still use your full combo when someone on your team dies. Another key thing to remember is that you won’t have access to the full combo until your characters get to level 61. You will want to upgrade the character that can use combo 3 first.

Here are some examples for building a team.

Speed + DPS

This is the preferred method to quickly clean up enemies. Works well when you are equal in combat power to your opponents. All you need is to be able to burst down 2 units in your first combo and the battle is most likely won. Great strategy until you fight against strong opponents and this won’t work as well. Also, AoE is really strong in this game, especially when it comes to quickly taking out enemies.

AoE (Story Mode)

  • Cammy/Chun Li (2,3), C. Viper (2,3), Dhalsim (1,3), Guile (1,3)
  • Cammy/Chun Li (2,3), Poison (2,3), Elena (1,2), Blanka (1,2)

The brackets indicate their combo slot number. Cammy is single target, but she is necessary for going first so all your other units can combo their AoE attacks. For team 2, Elena will be the tag member so she can beef up your best attacker to deal more damage.

Single Target (Boss Fighting)

Sometimes, you will encounter boss characters and you want as much single target to quickly burst them down. Having a strong single target team works well.

  • Guy(1,2), Cammy (2,3), Mad Ryu (2,3), Elena (1,2)
  • Chun Li(2,3), Cammy(2,3), Mad Ryu(2,3), Charming Dudley(1,2)
  • Adon(1,2), Dudley(1,3), Guy (1,2), Cammy (2,3)

Cammy is great as all her skills will apply armor break, making your entire team do more damage.

Useful Unit List

Here is a list of units that are quite good in my opinion since I have tested all of them. However, don’t let me deter you from using your favorite units. The team synergy is key and learning how to setup your combos correctly also play a huge part in how successful your team will be.

Thunder Faction

Blanka (AoE frontline)  – Has AoE damage and acts as a front line. His super can shock all 3 opponents if they are in melee range. It also slightly CC them during that time. His super and combo skill 2 are particularly good AoE damage.

Elena (healer, buffer) – She is very good as the tag member thanks to her stat buff to your highest attack ally. She can also AoE heal, which is useful in most battles. especially on game modes that carry over health, such as Shadaloo City and Global Operation maps.

Mad Ryu (Single Target DPS) – He is given on day 2 for free. Prior to level 121, he is an okay damage dealer. After 121 though, he unlocks his extra Hadouken attack when killing an enemy, making him a snowball character who goes on a roll when one enemy is defeated. Due to this mechanic, you can achieve high scores in guild Shadowland thanks to the consistent Hadouken spamming for killing low level characters. He is key in helping you get past 7-40, 8-40 and 9-40 bosses.

Makoto (Tank, CC) –  A great tank and can knock enemies up in the air for a brief moment when needed. She also pushes everyone to the corner and if you run an AoE team, they will decimate them easily. Her passive provides both attack and defense buffs, making her being able to soak up more damage.

Poison (AoE, Debuff) – Poison is a decent AoE attacker. Her super and combo skill 2 has decent AoE coverage and can be clutch in some matches where you need to either deal damage to multiple enemies or if you are trying to kill the backline.

Wind Faction

Abel – Very underrated but he helps in various situations as a tank. His damage is nothing special. His skill 1 combo can provide a shield that blocks 1 hit. This is useful against bosses that hits hard in 1 hit (Shadaloo Bosses). Also, in certain stage modes such as 8-40 or 9-40 in the right team composition, he can shine.

Beast Zangief – One of the few tanks that has very fast speed. At level 121, he starts at 126 speed, hence outspeeding Chun Li. His skill 2 can interrupt enemy combos should it stun the enemy. He is also quite tanky as well thanks to some damage reduction.

Chun Li – Best speed unit hands down for going first. She can fill combo bars after going first, allowing you to quickly chain your second round of combo, making her the best unit for initiating and bursting down the enemy before they can do anything. She has great super AoE as well that lowers enemy defenses. Stacking high crit rate on her is ideal. She is hard to pull though.

Cammy –  The most accessible speed single target damage dealer available to F2P players. She does big damage thanks to all her skills applying armor break. This benefits your team as well and particularly great against solo boss fights. Her skill 3 damage is very good when her extra hit triggers. She does die easy though if the frontline dies.

Guy – Guy is a bit underrated. His skill 1 doesn’t do much damage, but his super targets the backline and disrupt enemy skill combos. In some stages where the enemy backline has a big AoE damage dealer like C.Viper, Dhalsim or Combat Guile, he can deal with them.

Guile – Does big AoE damage with his super and skill 3. He can also apply armor break on his super and skill 1, although not as reliable as Cammy. Overall, he is a good DPS unit for the wind team. SONIC BOOM!

Flame Faction

C. Viper – She is a very strong AoE attacker and excels at killing backline units, alongside Dhalsim. All her skills are AoE and if you want to build a fire team, she is a must have on the team.

Decapre – Like Guy, she can deal with the backline, although she tends to target low Hp units. She is also the fastest Flame unit during global launch at 122 speed. Also a snowball unit and can clean up well.

Dhalsim – YOGA FLAME! This guy is excellent with C. Viper to deal with opposing teams that has ranged DPS units. Also a key member in dealing with M Bison teams in PvP. If he is the main damage dealer, you want to use his super and skill 3 for big AoE damage. He does have a skill 1 buff that makes him useless at times though, so make sure to always have another skill 1 unit on your team.

Mayor Cody – Is a bit weak early until he gets to level 121, where he will gain 50% damage reduction from backline enemies while he is dueling the tank up front. This allows him to take more damage for the team as a tank.

Fei Long– Weak early game, but will become a good unit for a 4 man flame team alongside Dhalsim and C.Viper as his supporting damage dealers. He can increase the damage of flame units and also his own as long as the team is all flame. He can also stun enemies.

Roadblocks in Story Mode

As mentioned earlier, each chapter will have some enemy teams that spike in damage or tankiness and you will have to make some adjustments to your team. This is usually the boss stages. After Chapter 6 is complete (I think), you can start hiring mercenary from your friends in the Dojo.

Go to your Dojo and send a request to borrow your friend’s units!

If they have M Bison, Mad Ryu at high levels, you can pass certain stages with their help. You can only use 1 mercenary of a friend per week. You can use them in all the different game modes such as Shadaloo, Supreme Fist Tower and Global Operation.

Chapter 4 Boss – This is the first real test as Chun Li is the lead here. If you are underleveled and you don’t have Chun Li, you will be stuck here in day 1 or 2 until you have enough resources to level your characters to tank some of her hits since she will go first.

Chapter 6 Boss – Another tough one with very high stats. You will be gated here for a while until your characters are about 101 awakened. You will also need a unit to outspeed Cammy.

Chapter 7-4 – The Chun Li hiding behind 2 beefy tanks can be a lot of trouble, especially when you don’t have the levels and speed to go first.

Chapter 8-40 – Mad Ryu is scary as his Hadouken is AoE and he hides behind tanks. You need your own M Ryu (or mercenary) that has the 121 passive unlocked to fight against it.

Chapter 9-40 – The Abel protection for the 2 Combat Guile’s behind him can be a pain. Being underleveled and eating 2 sonic booms is not fun. If you have Beast Zangief, you can retry many times to try and interrupt enemy combo with his second skill (it can stun) to interrupt the Guile back to back, stopping their combos from happening.

Chapter 10-40 – This has 2 Mad Ryus and you need a way to survive or the resets of Hadoukens will wipe you out. Borrowing a friend’s M Bison will help in this fight. Abel and Beast Zangief could also be used here for interruptions.

Awakening, Limit Break and Gearing Characters

Fusing characters is the name of this game and there are a few things you have to pay attention to. Never fodder any natural purple A rank characters as food (Abel, Chun Li, Cammy etc.), as in the late game, the number of SSS units you have will determine the level cap of your characters. So if you feed any of your natural A rank characters, you will stunt your growth later on. Also, you can only fuse characters of the same element.

You may want to lock your main team up just in case you have fat fingers and fuse them away.

Once you get to S+ rank for your main team, I don’t think it is worth it to rank up unless you really want to chase after the global awakening prize of the Master Chest. The chapter 9/10 wall means you won’t get enough resources to get them to 160+ easily until week 2/3 anyways.

With the Monster Hunter collab coming up around mid March, it is much better to save your resources and pull when the event arrives.

For A Rank Units

A to A+ = Requires the SAME character + (Total: 1 Duplicate)
A+ to S = Requires Any Two A+ characters of the same faction
S to S+ = Requires the SAME A+ characters. (Total: 3 Duplicates)
S+ to SS = Requires 1 S+ character of the same faction (SUPER GOOD read note below!)
SS to SS+ = Requires 1 S+ character of the same faction
SS+ to SSS = Requires 2 A+ characters of the same faction (Total = A character 7 duplicates)
For SSS+ Requires 1 A+ duplicate, you can do this up to 5 times to get SSS+5

For B Rank Units

B to B+ = Requires the SAME character (Total: 2 Duplicates)
B+ to A = (Any two B+ characters so that’s 6 B+ Units that you can fuse together)
A to A+ = Requires the SAME character at A rank (Total: 4 Duplicates, 12 B units you can fuse**)**
A+ to S = Requires any Two A+ characters of the same faction (Total: 4 Duplicates, 36 B units you can fuse)
S to S+ = Requires the SAME A+ character (Total: 8 Duplicates, 72!! B units )

Credit: https://www.reddit.com/r/streetfighterduel/comments/11hkx4w/how_many_duplicate_characters_do_you_need_to_get/

A bonus tip when fusing your B rank units is to keep most of them at B+. Since fusing them to A+ requires the same copies, you want to make sure you are using the right characters to fuse, or you waste more precious time from advancing your key units. Once you know who are the A rank units, you fuse the B+ units accordingly.

I am keeping all at B+ rank until I know who to get to A+ after I gather more B units.

For example, you have 1 A rank Sakura and you have 1 B+ Sakura and 2 B+ Ryu. If you use B+ Ryu as the main fusion and feed away B+ Sakura and B+ Ryu, then you would have to wait a little longer to get A+ Sakura. This is what the quick awaken function will do. So make sure to check it yourself to avoid make this mistake.

With an early account, you want to be able to get your Mad Ryu to S+ to unlock his 121 passive ASAP, which makes him shoot non-stop Hadoukens when he kills an enemy. Very key for mid chapters and for guild Shadowland quest high scores.

Breakstone Level Requirements

The number of breakstones required to limit break your characters:

  • Level 10 – 10
  • Level 20 – 40
  • Level 40 – 100
  • Level 60 – 250
  • Level 80 – 500
  • Level 100 – 1200
  • Level 120 – 3000
  • Level 140 – 6000
  • Level 160 – 12,000
  • Level 180 – 25,000
  • Level 200 – 30,000
  • Level 220 – 40,000
  • Level 239 – 50,000
  • Level 240 – Limit Break Cap

As you can see, the amount needed later on is crazy high. Save as much as you can, buy all you can see, as you need to do it 4 times.

Gearing/Equipment

Generally, you won’t need to worry about gearing your characters until about mid game. So around chapter 8+, you will want to do some minor upgrades as the stats (the % based ones) will add some power to your characters (the higher rarity your character is, the more it will impact their stats). However, I do not recommend buying much gear at all unless it is a S or higher gear that fits your main DPS. Save your gems for SS equipment later.

The guild shop will sell better equipment as you progress to later chapters. Right now at chapter 10, I am getting gold S+ gear for sale.

The good thing is, if you upgrade any purple or blue equipment, the experience will fully carry over if you feed them to the gold or red equipment. So don’t worry about lost experience. A similar element equipment on a character will grant them an extra 30% more stats.

Gathering Resources + Side Quests

While you are progressing in story mode, you will gradually unlock new modes that can get your extra resources. It is key you do all of them as F2P to be able to progress as far as you can. Breakstones are also very scarce materials once your characters get past level 120, so save some 2/6/8/12/24h ones until then, unless you absolutely need it for progressing early game. You will also want to buy all the breakstones available daily at the general store.

7 day Growth 

When you start the game, you are given a 7 day incentive to earn 100 arcade coins for pulls and many good rewards. You don’t have to complete all the quests to hit 350 mastery points. Missing 3 of them will still net you enough after 7 days to get all the coins. You must complete all of them within 7 days though.

You do, however, want to buy up all the daily pack items:

  • Day 1 – 5 arcade coins for 750 gems
  • Day 2 – 8h idle reward x10 for 800 gems
  • Day 3 – Equipment upgrade material x8 – 800 gems
  • Day 4 – A Grade Invitation x1 – 900 gems
  • Day 5 – 24h idle experience x10 – 1000 gems
  • Day 6 – B Grade Invitation x9 – 1200 gems
  • Day 7 – A Grade selection box x1 – 1800 gems

Of the 7 items, only day 3 and day 6 item is optional to buy in my opinion. The rest of the items are going to help you progress in the game. The day 7 selection box let’s you select (Cammy, C.Viper, Poison, Dhalsim, Hawk and Elena). Those experience rewards will help you get past certain story stages due to being underleveled.

14 day Growth

For those that are new, rejoice as after the 7 day growth event is over, there is another set of 100 arcade coins to get. So if you are worried of resources drying up, fear not!

Daily and Weekly Gem and Arcade Coin Count

Aside from the 1 time rewards you get from clearing the story mode, here is a rough estimate on what to expect on a daily basis in terms of consistent gem income.

  • Dailies – 100 gems and 1 Arcade Coin
  • Weeklies – 400 gems and 3 Arcade Coins
  • Arena – 50 gems daily at low PvP
  • Battle Royale – 2 Arcade Coins weekly at lowest ranking
  • Battle Royale Rankings – 50 gems weekly at lowest ranking
  • Dojo Friends – 50 gems daily (it is random however)
  • Bounties – 100 gems daily (Usually higher, but I low ball this)
  • Daily Perks – 20 gems

This comes out to about 9500 to 10,000 gems and 47 Arcade Coins on a monthly basis. This excludes any events or special rewards that the game will give you every so often. This translates to about 80 pulls monthly. Not too bad for just logging in 15- 30 minutes a day.

Bounties

For your daily bounties, make sure to do all of them, especially the breakstone rewards. Breakstone is a scarce item later on. You will want as many as you can get.

Shadaloo City

This game mode that resets every 2 days gives you City Tips, which is the resource required to get more character copies. The legendary Ruri is available here. Once you complete Shadoloo 3 times in your first 7 days, you will be rewarded with quite a lot of them. The actual amount you get per run is quite low, depending on the difficulty. On average, expect ~4k coins every 2 days. So we should be able to get our first Ruri after 1 month.

Unlike regular story mode, your characters health carries over to the next battle. Having a healer like Elena or using the Sakura EX card is pretty much a given. You have to fight a series of enemies and at the end, you fight a mini boss. There are 3 floors. Defeating each enemy will give you upgrade cards, which you want to choose wisely.

As for the strategy, you will want to get the following:

  • Lifesteal – This keeps your DPS alive.
  • Stun Enemy team for X seconds – Allows you to get first strike and keep your DPS from taking damage.
  • Enemy takes increased damage taken for X seconds – Allows you to clean up monsters lower level than you.
  • Increase Combo bar – There are some options that allow you to charge your combo bar when hitting enemy or defeating an enemy. Very useful in chaining combos back to back.
  • +% Attack damage mods – improves your team overall damage
  • +Dodge rate – Is good for DPS units as they evade fatal damage sometimes.
  • +% Defense – Great for survival once you have enough damage.

This is how I would prioritize what to take. Once you can comfortably kill enemies, you want to start picking the more defensive options. Try not to let more than 1 of your characters die, or else you wont be able to revive them until fighting the boss at the end.

As for the final boss, he can be very annoying. He can stun your team or shoot down a laser that can potentially one shot your units if they are underleveled. Abel is very useful here as he can give your allies a shield that blocks 1 attack, thus negating the chance of your DPS units dying randomly.

Global Operation

This game mode will give you important Fighting Souls for your characters. It can give you a nice power spike in story mode. It is basically a one time puzzle that you have to complete to get additional rewards such as cash, breakstones, shards and gems.

Master Trial 4-20 – Gives the Martial Soul. Grants attack bonus based on missing HP. Perfect for Mad Ryu.

Apocalypse Challenge 6-12 – Gives Fast Chant. Grants +8 speed and effect resist. Give this to your highest speed character with at least 119 speed. This allows you to outspeed story mode Chun Li on the enemy team.

Shadaloo King 7-12 – Gives Echo. Grants defense bonus and crit resilience. Great for your tanks.

Frozen Cave 8-12 – Gives Broken Formation. Grants increased attack when enemy is above 80% HP. Great against bursting down enemies.

Arctic Lake 9-12  – Gives Shelter. Grants a shield to your team. You also get your first gold gear here.

Shadaloo Warehouse 10-12 – Gives gold gear and martial fragments to upgrade your Fighting Souls.

I have linked the relevant videos on the chapter themselves if you have a hard time getting through it.

Supreme Fist

This is the tower version of this game. Each floor rewards you with cash, breakstones and shards. Each 9 levels provides blue shards and every 10th floor gives purple shards and additional gems. Progress as your team improves and try to earn as much as you can here.

FAQs

How does reseting a character work? Do I get all that progress back or only a portion?

Resetting is free and you get all your resources back. You can do so in the awakening section.

Help! I am stuck on X Stage? What should I do?

Check and see if you have other units that help with a particular stage. Often times, the game gates you from progressing too fast. If you find yourself always fighting at a combat level higher than yours, then you are doing well. Try leveling up or just wait for more resources. This is an idle game, they are not meant to be rushed unless you are willing to pay $.

Does equipment experience upgrades carry over?

Yes, based on what I have used, you can just feed the lower level equipment to the higher one and it will give the same experience that you used.

When does F2P get Divination Summoning?

Only available on Chapter 15 (not sure if we need to clear 15-40). Divination summon costs 5000 gems a pop, but it allows you to pick who you want to summon. The rates are 2% chance, but it also comes with other goodies like legendary gear, gems and upgrade materials. For F2p, this will take a while to get to.

 

That is it for now. hope this helps and enjoy the game!