Dragon Ball Legends guide: tips and tricks for Saiyan success

Dragon Ball Legends has several gameplay modes. There's the main story, the side missions and of course the option to duel other players online in PVP battles. All of these can be very rewarding, and require basically the same skills: picking the right team, knowing your fighter's characteristics and how to use their particular abilities.

In the following sections, we'll show you how to get started in Dragon Ball Legends and how to take the right steps for long term success, both in the story and against other players.

Jump to:

• How to use Elements
• Battle tactics
• Story challenges
• Character progression
• Character class and rarity

1. Know your Elements

Playing rock-paper-scissors with elemental powers, Pokemon-style, is a staple of video games and Dragon Ball Legends has this in spades. As usual, the different elements are color-coded for your convenience. Dragon Ball Legends has five elemental colors: Red, Yellow, Purple, Green, and Blue. Then there are two special colors, Dark and Light.

The calculus to know which elements are strong against others is as follows:

• Red > Yellow,
• Yellow > Purple
• Purple > Green
• Green > Blue
• Blue > Red
• Dark > all the aforementioned elements
• Light > Dark

Before starting a new Story or Event mission, take a look at the opposition presented and compare the elements with your own team setup. If the enemy colors are strong against your own team members, then switch them out for one that is strong against the enemy color. You want to head into battle with as many character element advantages as possible.

During the battle itself, keep an eye on your character icons to know when to tag in and out of a fight:

• If they have a blue arrow next to them, throw them into the fight! 
• If they’re sporting a red arrow, they're in trouble, so swap them out for someone else immediately.

2. Tips and tricks to win in battle

Dragon Ball Legends is a fast and furious fighter that evokes the frantic pace of the anime series, with warriors zipping around the sky laying down fast flurries of strikes and flashing projectiles. You'll need some good tactics to keep up with your opponent and know the right time to act.

• As soon as the battle begins, move around your foe for a while and look for an opening (like when you dodge an enemy's ranged attack for example).
• When you spot the opening, move in close and start tapping to lay down some melee attacks.
• If you have some Ki stored, activate one of your Arts Cards. Using three Arts Cards in succession can devastate any enemy if you have a lot of Ki available.
• Try activating the cards that have a Dragon Ball icon next to them. That way, you’ll power up your Rising Rush attack for later use in the battle.
• As soon as your character’s icon starts glowing, tap on it to use their special ability. These abilities tend to increase your character’s stats, so it's an advantage you want ASAP.
• If you need charge your Ki, do so after you knock back an enemy with an attack, otherwise you're just asking to get slapped. Red Art cards are great for knocking back enemies.
• Don't waste your Rising Rush attack early in a battle. This move does a ton of damage and should be saved for the final and most difficult enemy in the encounter.

3. Challenge yourself in the story

Goku trained hard to become the greatest martial artist in the universe, and so should you strive to do your best in every mission. Dragon Ball Legends doesn't just reward you for finishing story missions, but rewards you extra for fighting with style and skill. So rise to the challenge!

• Every Story mission in the game comes with certain challenges, which you can check in the team setup portion of the mission. Typically, there are seven challenges to complete per mission in order to get the maximum reward. Completing a challenge gets you three Chrono Crystals, that's 21 Chrono Crystals for fulfilling all seven challenges.
• Completing challenges also gifts you with Rare Medals, which can be exchanged for materials (Souls) that you can use to help Limit Break your characters. You can also score yourself extra Rare Medals just by winning Ranked PvP matches.

4. Level up your characters

After summoning some new characters and trying them out, you'll probably have a good idea of which are your favorites. To get characters to power up faster, it's best to focus on your main team rather than spreading your time and effort across the whole roster. 

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Here's how to gain EXP and level up your fighters fast:

• Just complete Story missions: you'll be awarded with a steady stream of EXP as you advance.
• You can repeat Story missions to 'farm' EXP safely, especially if you get stuck on later ones.
• You can also put a character into Training mode for a set time limit is reached. Don’t worry – that character can still be used in battle. So it's worth putting one of your main characters in Training as well as using them in your Story team.
• Limit Breaks help increase a character’s overall power and star level (seven stars is the max level). Limit Breaks require Z Power, which can be obtained from Summons and by completing Story missions.
• Once you unlock the ability to Soul Boost a character, you can further upgrade their stats. You’ll need Zeni and Souls to unlock new Boost Panels on a character’s Soul Boost board. After several Boost Panels, you can activate a Boost Core/Class Up. This increases the characters power level and also unlocks new Boost Panels on their Soul Boost board.
• The Equipment tab of the main menu allows you to attach certain items to each character. These items basically activate passive buffs. Each item can be upgraded by spending Zeni and Souls on them, and duplicate items can be sold to acquire even more Zeni. Some Boost Core/Class Ups can unlock more Equipment slots for a character.

What to do with characters you don't like or are too weak for your main team? Send them on adventures to fetch resources you can use to level up your mains!

5. Character class roles and rarity

Besides Elements, each character is also associated with a certain class type and rarity level. The four class types are Melee, Ranged, Defense, and Support. The three rarity levels are Hero, Extreme, and Sparking. Naturally, rarer characters are more powerful than common ones, but the same personality takes on different roles based on rarity.

Making the best team means considering a character’s Element, class type, and rarity level before each battle. Check the class and rarity level for each character below:

Hero (Low-Tier):

• Goku (Ranged)
• Gohan (Ranged)
• Krillin (Defense)
• Raditz (Melee)
• Saibamen (Support)
• Vegeta (Ranged)
• Zarbon (Defense)
• Dodoria (Melee)
• Guldo (Support)
• Burter (Support)
• Jeice (Support)
• Recoome (Melee)
• 1st Form Frieza (Defense)
• Jaco (Defense)
• Yamcha (Support)
• Tien (Defense)
• Chiaotzu (Ranged)
• Shallot (Melee)
• Nappa (Support)
• Fused with Nail Piccolo (Defense)

Extreme (Mid-Tier):

• Goku (Melee)
• Tien (Defense)
• Chiaotzu (Support)
• Mercenary Tao (Support)
• Raditz (Ranged)
• Nappa (Melee)

Sparking (Top-Tier):

• Pikkon/Paikuhan (Melee)
• Piccolo (Defense)
• Vegeta (Ranged)
• Goku (Defense),
• Super Saiyan Goku (Ranged)
• Pan (Support)

The ultimate best characters are somewhat predictable for fans of the series. Sparking Super Saiyan Goku, Vegeta, and Piccolo have the right combination of abilities to become a nigh invincible team. If you have the chance to use these characters, then it's worth investing your resources into developing them for your main team.

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We hope that this advice helps your rise to power in Dragon Ball Legends! If you have any other tips to share, don't hesitate to let us know in the comments!