Beginner's guide

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Explaining gacha

	Gachas use paid crystals or free crystals. The rates are the same, but paid crystals can be discounted, such as the "Daily Gacha" here. The pick-up details shows the details of the featured unit/arks at max level. Gacha details and probability show the details of the gacha banner, and the drop rate of all the possible units/arks in the banner respectively. This is an example of a "featured gacha banner". There are multiple types of gacha in this game. Permanent gacha: Features permanent units and arks. These units and arks will be available in all banners, including semi-limited and limited banners. They can also be obtained through gacha tickets. Semi-limited gacha: Banners that return every so often, such as monthly Descent of Heroes banners. Limited gacha: Seasonal banners such as the Christmas banner, and banners that feature collaboration units and arks, such as Secret of Mana units and Arks. These banners are the rarest and only rerun at the developer's discretion. Free players and low spenders should avoid pulling on permanent banners.
	The Ticket gacha is for spending gacha tickets that are obtained through achievements, events, and shop packages. You can only obtain permanent units and arks from tickets. Some tickets have expiry dates, so be careful if you don't plan on using these tickets immediately.
	The Friend gacha uses Friend points obtained by using Support units, and gifting friends/being gifted by your friends. Do not pull on the regular Friend point gacha. Friend Gacha campaigns add Mother Souls (in quantities of 1,3,5...) to the pool. Mother Souls are an extremely rare resource for increasing any unit's SC – the Friend Gacha campaign is one of the few guaranteed sources of Mother Souls.

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Explaining stamina

Last Cloudia is generally known as a "no stamina" game. The "no stamina" means that you can run stages an infinite amount of times without being gated by "stamina". This is only half true.

There is a "soft stamina" system in Last Cloudia where, if you plan on equipping Arks while entering combat, you will require a number of souls as an entry cost.

In the above screenshot, we have an Ark equipped. That Ark costs 2,640 blue souls to use, which is also shown as Required Souls below the Start Quest button.

90% of the time, you will want to equip Arks when entering battle. The only times when you don't want to equip Arks is when you are farming stages for souls (they drop in minuscule amounts per stage clear), or when you are out of souls.

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Explaining currencies

1. The gold coin is Zell, the main game currency. Zell is used to enhance units, purchase equipment and upgrade soul tanks and soul spots.
2. Crystals are the premium currency in this game. They are used for pulling on gacha and increasing friend slots.
3. Blue orbs are known as "blue souls". Blue souls are obtained from unlocking and leveling soul spots dotted through the world map. You obtain a set amount each day, and sometimes, paid boosters are available to make them generate faster. Blue souls are used to level arks, learn ark skills, and level red soul spots and red soul tanks.
4. Red orbs are known as "red souls", and generate at a much lower rate than blue souls. Red souls are used to level arks and learn ark skills.

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Changing your in-combat settings

These are the in-combat settings that I use. You can copy these as recommended settings, or you can read the giant explanation below.

• Auto attack means that your units will automatically target enemies and use regular attacks. This applies to all units that are not selected, or all units if Auto Drive is on Semi/Full.
• NPC uses Specials automatically means that the bottom right skill, known as the "Ultimate" or "Special", will automatically be used when it is ready to be used (charged). Turn this off when you aren't farming.
• Confirmation screens for magic – does what it says. Keep this on since there's no downside to it.
• Special Cut-In refers to the brief pop-up at the start of each unit's Special. Visual flair only.
• Summons Movie refers to the 10 second or so animation when you use a Summon (i.e. Yggdrasil). Most players have these off after watching these movies once, because they can waste a lot of time.
• Camera shake refers to the screen shaking during combat. Turn this off ASAP if you are easily motion-sick. I have it off because I cannot stand camera-shake in most games.
• Manual Drive refers to being able to control your unit manually. You can use the giant red Attack button as a thumbstick to move your unit around when you have Manual Drive on. Manual Drive does not conflict with Auto Drive.
• Auto Drive refers to the "AUTO" below the Settings icon in combat. You can turn Auto off without needing to turn Auto Drive off.
  • Full = all units are under Auto.
  • Semi = your selected unit will be on Auto (using spells, skills and Ultimate) but you are able to take control whenever.
• Rematch confirmation refers to the pop-up screen when you clear a stage you've already cleared prior. It prompts you to repeat the stage. Keep this on if you plan on manually farming a stage.
• Rematch support refers to setting a support unit on the rematch.
  • Full = the game automatically selects a support unit for you.
  • Semi = you're prompted to choose from a list of support units.
  • None = Skip support unit entirely on rematch.
  Some players prefer not bringing support units for certain stages.

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Changing your support unit

Tap on Party from the bottom bar, then tap the Unit and Ark above the party name to change your support Unit and Ark.

Adding friends

Playing a gacha is a lonely endeavour. No, really, I totally understand your plight – otherwise you'd be playing on a Switch or FFXIV.

To lessen your ongoing grief, you can add "friends" in this game. In this game, all "friends" are friends with benefits. Ergo, you should add as many "friends" as you can. There is no downside to having more "friends".

Obtaining friend points

First, add some "friends". Then, follow the instructions below.

When you tap on the pink box in the right image, you are shown this popup. To play smart, you will want to change to Friend Points and stay on it forever.

Sometimes event currencies are obtainable in friend gifts. The Ceremonial Badge shown below is an event currency. Remember to switch back to friend points when the event ends. The game will not do it automatically for you.

Explaining skill cost (SC)

Skill cost, or SC for short, is the main measurement of how strong your unit is. The most unique aspect of Last Cloudia's progression system is allowing any unit to learn any Ark skill as long as they have the right Arks and the enough souls.

To balance these Ark skills, each skill has a "cost" to equip. More skills = more SC required.

You will need to increase SC to equip more Ark skills. First, enter the Unit screen.

Then tap on the green button next to the SC counter.

• Unit souls are souls specific to the unit, such as Kyle's souls. These souls can only be used on Kyle.
• Mother souls can be used on any unit to increase their SC. Save those souls for limited units because it's much harder to obtain a limited unit's souls once their banner ends.

Once you're done increasing SC, you need to equip skills. Because I have no skills on Kyle, let's move to Saintly Theria.

From top to bottom:

• The Reset button lets you reset all your equipped skills on that page. So if you are on the Magic page, all your spells will be unequipped, but your passives will still be equipped. It's useful for restarting a build.
• The Sorting and Filtering options is for when you have a few dozen skills learned and all the icons are painful to look at.
• The SC 0 spells indicate that the unit has learned these spells from their ability tree. That means that the unit can equip them at no cost, and doesn't need the relevant Ark either. STheria learns Galaxy and Shining Zok from her ability tree, so she can equip them at no cost.
• The Browse Skill Set shows all the skills you have currently equipped. See below.

To view all the skills you have mastered, tap the Skills button on Kyle's main page.

And once again, because I have no skills on Kyle, I'll show you how this page looks like on Saintly Theria.

This page monitors all the Ark skills you have learned or are in the progress of learning. It is very useful for forgetful people.

Like me, who forgot I was making STheria learn Proud Force until I took this screenshot for this guide. By the time you're reading this, I probably forgot again.

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Explaining unit ability trees

The most important upgrade path for your units is to max out their ability tree. It doesn't matter which nodes you unlock, because you should unlock them all (other than the 15SC node on 4th enhance, unless you need 80SC).

Important: The SC nodes on the ability tree unlock the SC cap – not the SC itself. You need unit souls or mother souls to increase usable SC.

Navigate to your unit screen, then press the Ability button.

You need crystallites, crystals and crystal clusters to unlock ability tree nodes. See the images below as an example.

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Unlocking units with souls

Permanent units can be unlocked by amassing souls from Friend point gacha or unit story stages (i.e. unlocking Robin by beating Robin in Gorm's unit story stage).

Monster units are also unlocked via souls, albeit they need 50 instead of 30.

To unlock a unit, navigate to the Unit screen and scroll to the bottom. Then tap on the greyed out unit.

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Explaining Arks and Ark skills

Arks are self-explanatory to a point. When you equip an Ark, you gain the Ark's stats and Ark passives (shown here as Ark attributes) on your unit. Some Ark passives are party-wide, so they will affect every Unit in your party.

I've highlighted the remaining parts in the screenshot below.

From top to bottom: The required souls is the soul cost for equipping and using this Ark in a single stage. Soul costs will increase with Ark level. Some Arks change from Blue souls to Red souls at level 6, so check before leveling. An early example is Sorcerer's Eden. The library leads the player to the "lore" for the Ark, which is unlocked at Ark levels 2, 4, 7 and 10. You will also obtain crystals and sometimes Etherions for leveling an Ark. See the Lore page to read the lore for Arks and Units outside the game. The view button lets the player view the Ark's animated art with the interface removed. You can pinch and zoom in/out. If you see golden sparkles, enter View mode and tap on the sparkles for free items. The Ark Ether bottle represents how much Ether you have obtained on the Ark. You have a chance to increase Ether by 0.1% with each stage clear, and some Ark ether rewards are game-changing. See the Ark ether guide for more information. The AP rate refers to the number of AP you gain per stage clear. The AP gained refers to the amount of AP needed to learn the skill. For example, the Heal skill needs 120 AP, and you gain 18 AP per stage clear, so you need to repeat a stage 7 times to learn Heal. If you are midway through learning Heal on a different Ark, the progress will be carried over to this Ark. 100% Ether Arks increase AP rate by 3x, effectively reducing the soul cost needed to learn a skill to a third.

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New player goals

At the launch of the Global version, there was a very concise checklist passed around for new players. For some reason, that checklist has faded into obscurity, and we've been greeting confused new players for the past few months.

I've reconstructed the checklist below.

1. Focus on your main party (3 units) until level 60
2. Upgrade your soul spots as much as possible
3. Upgrade your soul tanks
4. Be selective on which Arks to level
5. Max out your friends list for friend points
6. Max out your Conquer slots ASAP
7. Use your unit souls for SC

1. Focus on your main party (3 units) until level 60

One of the biggest mistakes early on is to spread your resources thin on your entire unit roster. Focus on the three units in your main party.

To gain EXP efficiently, swap a unit for another unit if you reach max level with them and can't enhance (uncap level) them ASAP.

You can discard this advice when you reach level 60 because the level 60 enhance can take some time.

2. Upgrade your soul spots as much as possible

Souls is the scarcest resource because it is time-gated and acts as a soft stamina bar for most activities in the game. Use your blue souls to upgrade red spots – you will need those reds to upgrade red Arks.

You will unlock soul spots as you progress through Story. These include:

• Blue Spot No. 1: Available from the start.
• Red Spot No. 1: Available immediately after arriving at Port Aldana.
• Blue Spot No. 2: Available after clearing Royal Capital Aldana and recruiting Zekus.
• Red Spot No. 2: Available after clearing Dara Desert for the first time.
• Blue Spot No. 3: Available after clearing White Laboratory and recruiting Theria.
• Blue Spot No. 4: Available immediately after reaching the Lanzelia continent.
• Blue Spot No. 5: Available after clearing Evria Ice Caverns, right before Blaze Garden.
• Red Spot No. 3: Available after clearing Kaldina Ruins on the Odal Continent (latest story update).

Taken from Greensburg's beginner guide.

As more Story content is added, more soul spots will open up, allowing players to increase their soul generation. When that happens, always prioritise new soul spots.

3. Upgrade your soul tanks

The higher your tank capacity, the more souls you can keep to upgrade SR and SSR arks with. DO NOT upgrade SSR arks early on. You need max level soul tanks to upgrade SSR arks to level 10.

New players should level their tanks to level 5 before focusing on other things.

4. Be selective on which Arks to level

Until the Ark level selector (a feature to adjust Ark levels before entering combat) is added to Global, you will be stuck with high Ark level costs for some crucial Arks. Beware upgrading arks you don't immediately need.

These are easy and important skills for early players:

Skill	Description	Ark required	SC
Healing Wind	Recovers HP to all allies		3	The basic healing spell for new players. Put Healing Wind on at least 2 units in your party so that when you need healing, both units will cast it at the same time – making up for its low HP recovery.
Fast Brave	Automatically activates Brave on battle start		2	+20% STR buff for 40 seconds. Recommended for physical DPS units like Seilios and Kyle.
Fast Aura	Automatically activates Aura on battle start		2	+20% INT buff for 40 seconds. Recommended for mage units like Zekus.
Lostoma	Single enemy's INT -20%		2	Recommended for boss fights. Limiting damage taken is important for lower level units.
Blazer	Single enemy's STR -20%		2	Recommended for boss fights. Limiting damage taken is important for lower level units.
High Level Magic Chant	Greatly increase the casting speed of all magic		9	Boosts casting speed for mage and support units. Necessary for most spells. Zekus learns this for free.

5. Max out your friends list for friend points

The friend point exchange is one of the best sources of materials early on. Don't waste those points on the friend point gacha – use them for materials.

Tap on the Shop icon on the home screen, then increase your friend slots on the top left.

You can exchange by entering the Marketplace from the Shop on the homescreen. All materials in the friend shop exchange refresh daily, so the low quantity is not an issue.

6. Max out your Conquer slots ASAP

Unit souls are used for increasing your unit's SC, which is used for equipping learned Ark skills (that cost SC). The amount of SC a unit has usually determines how strong/flexible that unit is in endgame.

Conquer is an idling feature that lets you generate 4 unit souls per unit per slot every 20 hours. New players should prioritise reaching Blaze Garden because it unlocks the second set of Conquer slots.

Since SC is the largest bottleneck for endgame, the sooner you start, the sooner you finish endgame.

7. Use your unit souls for SC

Unit souls are used for two purposes: awakening units, and increasing the unit's SC.

Awakening is when you upgrade a unit's base stats and their Special, also known as Ultimate. The cost for Awakening normal units is fixed:

1. Level 1: 30 souls
2. Level 2: 60 souls
3. Level 3: 90 souls
4. Level 4: 150 souls

The cost for Awakening monster units is slightly higher, but monster souls are also much easier to farm from Story stages:

1. Level 1: 50 souls
2. Level 2: 80 souls
3. Level 3: 120 souls
4. Level 4: 200 souls

You can see an example of the Awaken screen below.

Our recommended strategy is to:

1. Increase unit to 30 SC
2. Awaken to +2 (30 souls, then 60 souls)
3. Increase unit SC to 50 SC
4. Awaken to +4 (90 souls, then 150 souls)
5. (Optional) Finish increasing SC to 60-80

The reasoning for this strategy is that you achieve a balanced progression between base stats, upgrading your Ultimate, and equipping important Ark skills.

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Walkthrough: From level 1 to level 20

There are five Story units to unlock. You will start with Kyle, Lilebette and Rei – but you will obtain Zekus really soon, and Theria a while after.

Units	Unlocked at
	Unlocked at the start of the game.
	Unlocked in Imperial City Aldana – less than an hour into the game. A top tier mage and physical DPS unit, even in endgame.
	Unlocked in White Laboratory – nearly 3-8 hours into the game, depending on how much you can push with level 20 units. We recommend that you skip using Theria early on because of how late you obtain her. You do not need a dedicated healer for Story mode. Anyone can learn healing spells.

3-starring stages

As you play the game, you will run into stage goals that require certain spells to be cast.

We recommend that you return to these stages later instead of trying to 3-star them. These requirements usually ask for spells that are available on Story units (i.e. Lilebette or Zekus), and most players don't focus on their Story units if they rerolled for Gacha units.

Uncapping level 20 units

Uncapping your unit from level 20 to level 40 requires upgrade materials. You can obtain these materials from several sources.

Story maps like the free quest in Yggdrasil Tree are unlocked early on, and are easy to farm, but have low drop rates.

You can also obtain materials from the Friend point exchange and the Limit Breaker Field event dungeon (open weekdays). The Limit Breaker Field event dungeon costs event orbs, which regenerate at a rate of 1 orb every 60 minutes.

To see which materials you need, enter the Unit screen and check your Unit's profile.

It will show you something like this screen.

Beware the Zell cost when enhancing units. You don't want to enhance more than 3 units (a party) before level 60, or you'll be stuck grinding Zell and materials instead of progressing.

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Walkthrough: From level 21 to level 40

When you reach your high 20s, you'll find that the monsters become progressively stronger. To keep up, you need to purchase equipment from Shops.

	Crowded City Badaal Equipment to buy: Cactus Hammer (+25% chance to Stun enemies on regular attack (normal attack/auto-attack) Deadly Choker (3% Crit chance accessory) Healing Wand (+15% healing output) Coat of Thieves (Less likely to be targeted by enemies).
	Port Kandra Equipment to buy: Lanzelian Coat (for DEF/MND) Ice Shield (free Guard – useful early on your melee units) Ice Rose Corsage (+10 INT accessory) Manacle of a Giant (+STR and +DEF accessory)

Grinding crystals and EXP

Here are several locations that are friendly for lower level parties.

	Malboria Lava Caves Stages (Normal and Hard) Roaring Mystery – can be cleared with a single Blizzard mage like Zekus, and drops Red crystals
	Gragia Mountains Stages (Normal and Hard) Downslope – can be cleared with Blizzard and Lightning Gauge. Drops all crystals, Ancient Alchemy (Hard only) and Stardust (Hard only). Mountain Path's End. Drops all crystals and Stardust (Hard only). Seaside Rain Clouds. Drops all crystals and Metal Plate (Hard only).
	Evria Ice Caverns (Lanzelia) Stages (Normal and Hard) Dependable Maiden – can be cleared with Galaxy. Drops all crystals and Blue crystal clusters (Hard only).

Beating Zouglas, the boss in Blaze Garden

It is actually possible to reach Blaze Garden and beat Zouglas at level 40 without assists.

However, you'll need to know what you are doing, such as equipping the right Arks and pairing the right Units against him. For most players, it is much safer to face Zouglas when they reach level 45-50.

Nevertheless, here are a few strategies.

• Bring a Light mage, and have them equip your strongest Ark (for most players this will be a level 10 Sorcerer's Eden or Grave of the Blademaster). Then spam Galaxy until Zouglas is dead. Beware his Dark spells – it can wipe your party if you're not careful. Always keep him debuffed with Lostoma and your party buffed with Barrier/Protection.
• Another strategy is to use Shin, Randi or any other PDPS unit with either Light element, Neutral element or the God Slayer passive (Zouglas is God type).
• You can cheese Zouglas by bringing a lv60-80+ Support unit (i.e. a mage Lily or mage Saintly Theria) and controlling them for the duration of the fight.

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Walkthrough: From level 41 to level 60

If you haven't beaten Zouglas yet, refer to the level 40 section on how to beat him. This section assumes players are able to reach Ladour Island.

Grinding crystals and EXP

	Midra Forest (Ladour Island) Stages (Normal and Hard) Search the Ruins – can be cleared with Fire spells. Drops all crystals and Green crystal clusters (Hard only). Unlocks in the nodes after Blaze Garden. Hate for the Forest – can be cleared with Fire spells. Drops all crystals, and Blue and Red crystal clusters (Hard only). Unlocks in the nodes after Blaze Garden.
	Evria Ice Caverns (Lanzelia) Stages (Normal and Hard) Silent Ice Caverns – can be cleared with Galaxy. Drops all crystals, and Red and Purple crystal clusters (Hard only). Unlocks in the series of new stages after you visit Ladour Village for the first time.
	Gragia Mountains Stages (Normal and Hard) Imperial Guard Commander 3 – can be cleared with Shining Zok or Abyss Gate. Drops Blue and Green crystals, Blue and Green crystal clusters and EXP potions. The ideal stage for farming EXP and Ark ether.

Uncapping level 60 units

Enhancing past level 60 is the biggest obstacle yet. For players who rerolled for Phantom Thief Robin, now is your time to max out his Ability tree (the bottom branch has the Extort talent) and to learn Crit passives.

For everyone else, your best chance is to loan a Phantom Thief Robin as a Support unit. You will be using him to maximise item drops from Transcendental Gate, which is a level 55 event dungeon open on Fri/Sat/Sun.

You need at least one unit in your party (not a Support unit) at level 55 or above to enter this dungeon.

1. Hard difficulty drops all materials other than Light of the World and Foreign Light. Clear it once, and move onto Nightmare.
2. Nightmare difficulty drops all materials, including Light of the World and Foreign Light which are needed for the level 80 enhance. Do this stage as much as you can, and get carried by high level Support units (tip: add players from Discord and Reddit).

Walkthrough: After level 60

From this point forward, you will want to explore Arena and Tower of Trials, as well as complete the rest of Story mode. Maybe you want to raise another Unit or two, or you're still deep in grinding for Zell.

A few tips:

• Remember to gift your friends every day. It's free Friend points, and you will want as many Friend points as possible for a possible Friend Gacha campaign in the future.
• Don't forget to collect Conquer souls every day. And don't worry about micro-managing it – just treat 20 hours as 24 hours every day.
• Check into the game twice a day to collect souls. Souls will usually fill twice a day with maxed out soul tanks.
• Save your crystals for limited banners. You will gain nearly 90,000 crystals over the entire Story mode. Save those crystals for limited banners because you can obtain all permanent Units and Arks in limited banners.
• Don't be afraid to ask questions. The community is there for you to benefit from.

Whatever you do from this point forward is up to your priorities. We wish you the best of luck on your journey in Last Cloudia.

Thanks for reading!

What are crystals?

Crystals are the premium currency in Last Cloudia. Crystals are divided between paid crystals and free crystals.

You can view your number of paid and free crystals by navigating to Settings > Other > Purchase Information from the Home screen.

How to obtain free crystals

There are a number of methods to obtain Crystals in the game. There is no guaranteed daily income of crystals. However, you can obtain a sizeable number of crystals by pursuing non-renewable sources of crystals.

Non-renewable sources of free crystals:

1. Normal missions – especially the "Log in x number of days" missions.
2. Leveling up Arks (levels 2, 4, 7, 10)
3. Leveling up Units (levels 10, 30, 50, 80)
4. Clearing stage missions
5. Clearing stages for the first time

Fluctuating (semi-renewable) sources of free crystals:

1. Event missions.
2. Clearing event stage missions
3. Clearing event stages for the first time
4. Monthly login rewards
5. Event login rewards
6. Extended maintenance compensation rewards
7. Bug compensation rewards

Renewable sources of premium currency usually refers to daily and weekly missions in other mobile games. Last Cloudia has no dailies or weeklies, so Last Cloudia has no renewable sources of premium currency.

Advice for light spenders

Every so often, the developers will come out with special crystal packages that include Mother Souls that cost roughly $80 USD each. If you are keen to support the game and are not so keen on the high prices, these special packages offer the most value for your dollar.

Do NOT buy the level up packs or the guaranteed SSR ticket packs. There are very few worse things you can throw your paid crystals onto. The SSR pool is already too large to hope for specific Arks or Units, and the level up packs are redundant if you've played longer than a month.

The developer has confirmed that a monthly subscription deal will come soon. No further details have been provided.

Purchase the boosters

Every month or two, boosters will be made available for 2 weeks. These boosters will always expire at the specified time, so the sooner you purchase them, the longer you benefit.

The soul gain booster is the best value for money in terms of anything you can purchase. It doubles soul regeneration rate, effectively allowing newer players to catch up to older players in half the time.

The EXP gain booster and AP gain booster are only recommended for newer players so that they can reach endgame in less time.

Further advice

Not all paid equipment are worthwhile. Always check the equipment passives and community consensus before deciding to spend for them. For example, very few equipment are as game-breaking as Davan's paid Axe.

You don't need to pay to keep up with the latest meta. As long as you have a built team, you can still clear the hardest content in the game with launch Units and Arks.

Most crystals in this game are obtained by playing the game. Last Cloudia is not a pull simulator. Play Dragalia Lost or Destiny Child if all you care about is pulling on the gacha.

Always check the featured Unit and Ark banner rates before pulling. It's become a recent trend for AIDIS to screw around with the rates. Some banners will have 1% featured rate, others will have 1.5%, and a few select banners (with multiple units) will have 0.5% rate up. Checking before pulling will help you make informed decisions as to whether a banner is worth your time.

For further enquiries, ask other players in Reddit or Discord.